


The Art of Cutting Cookies

by WhisperingOrchard



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Humor, M/M, No Angst, Stream of Consciousness, child-rearing!fic, jean is kind of a geek, literally nothing but fluff and humor, pop culture references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:56:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperingOrchard/pseuds/WhisperingOrchard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>COMPLETE. Although Jean has successfully won the heart of Marco Bodt, he has his doubts about winning over the freckled man’s four-year-old son—especially after moving in without an inkling that the boy so much as exists. Domestic, child-raising!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As seen on tumblr; just uploading it to my ao3 account. 
> 
> This chapter is mostly a prequel of sorts, though it wound up being around 9000 words. So... Yeah. Just bear that in mind; Marco's child will not make an appearance this chapter.  
> (I've never been great at writing humor, so let me know how that is, please!)

This is all that damn Jaeger’s fault.

But, then, what _isn’t_ ? In his few months working the evening shift at the restaurant, Jean Kirschstein swears that he has never experienced such horrendous coworker relations as those endured with a certain Eren Jaeger. Maybe it’s the awkward curve of Eren’s nose (ever-so-slightly twisted—obviously broken once or twice as a child—bent just enough to catch Jean’s eye and  _drive him up the fucking wall_ ). It might also be the grating of Eren’s shrill voice when it calls an order back to the chefs in the kitchen; Jean swears his shout could collapse an entire civilization, were he the size of Godzilla (scratch that—he could do it at his current shrimpy height, Jean muses with a snort). Or, perhaps, it’s the manner in which Eren can so effortlessly remember _every little detail_ of a customer’s order without so much as picking up the pen and notepad and—

Regardless, the fact of the matter is that Eren Jaeger is and always will be a little shit.

Maybe that’s harsh. _Maybe_. There are those  _select few_ moments at the work place where Jean has been able to confide in Eren for tips on balancing that godforsaken tray of plates, or for a quick swig of wine snuck before closing up shop for the night. Why, they might even be capable of establishing a friendship, if Eren ever learned to  _not_ be kind of a douche. But such a thing was never meant to be, regrettably. Real pity, too, for Jean knows without a doubt that Eren could benefit from befriending somebody with as much class as a Kirschstein. He’s never been a narcissist, but between the option of associating with a Jaeger or a Kirschstein… Well, Eren might as well not even _be_ an option.

In fact, based on this logic, Eren should not be an option for Mikasa Ackerman.

Out of the multitude of petty complaints Jean holds against Eren, his peculiar relationship with Mikasa is perhaps the most irking of all. It isn’t that the two are dating—if that were the case, Jean could accept it (it would disgust him to the point of blowing chunks in the potted ficus by the door, but apart from occasional nausea and constipation, he thinks he could handle it).No, no, nothing so trivial—Jean’s greatest complaint about their odd friendship is Eren’s utter _nonchalance_ about the beautiful woman who practically waits at his side (be it out of ignorance or sheer indifference, Jean is not sure; probably some horrid combination of the two). Jean has been anything but silent on the matter—Eren has received such an earful from the other young man that he once came to work with lilac ear plugs stuffed in his ears (which eventually proved inefficient for working in a restaurant and taking orders, so that only lasted a few minutes anyway—but it’s the fact that it happened at all that digs its way under Jean’s skin

—and _lilac?_ ).

Oh, Eren might swear it was because he was swimming beforehand, but there is no fooling Jean on this matter. Even if Eren’s hair was wet when he arrived for his shift—even if Jean had yanked the belt loop on the back of Eren’s slacks to check for underwear (as proof) and found a pair of orange swim-trunks adorned with octopi (along with a fist to the face later that evening). Eren wasn’t _swimming_ ; douchebags can’t  _swim_.

Jean can’t swim either, but that’s beside the point.

(And Jean admits to being a douche at times, for is anybody ever truly undouchey? In this world of Erens and Mikasas and Jeans, there are varying degrees—varying _breeds_ of douche, each of their own mannerisms and their own level of doucheiness. Jean is the least douchey of these douches, apart from Mikasa. Mikasa, despite her femininely douchey qualities, is not a douche, but an angel descended from heaven to forgive Jean for all of his douchey ways and lead him away from the douche side of the force, toward a path of great power where one douche shoots first and another gets tossed down a hole [it’s probably Eren—useless, douchey Eren…]).

Such are Jean’s aimless thoughts as he pushes open the back door of the Italian restaurant at which he works, entitled Muro Maria—Italian Restaurante (which Jean once heard was incorrect Italian, but the food is authentic as hell, so he really didn’t look into it—at all, actually; put simply, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass). He strolls in large strides, clad in the typical table-waiting attire (the black slacks, the bow tie, all that jazz—hey, this “restaurante” is so fucking classy that it has an “e” tacked onto the end of it in the name, so if anybody has a problem with Jean’s uniform, they can suck it). Running a hand through his hair, he kicks the door shut behind him and shuffles past a waitress in the hall on the way to the kitchen; the scramble to fill orders and avoid obstacles whilst holding a tray of food has gotten the better of a-many of Jean’s coworkers, and it would probably be best if he evaded all of these people on the way to get orders; he ran into Sasha once in the past while she was carrying a hot bowl of minestrone (his sleeves had been conveniently rolled up that summer evening—he still has scars on his forearm where the soup had splashed). Tugging his sleeves down subconsciously at the thought, Jean steps out into the kitchen, eyeing the stacks of plates on display atop the window, free for the picking—platters of little rigatonis and raviolis and rotinis, bowls of stracciatella and minestrone soups, freshly baked slices of crostata crowned with perfectly plucked apricots, baskets and baskets of wheat and rye and _dammit_ Jean forgot to eat dinner before driving over. Crap.

Ignoring the nag from his empty gut, he dodges another waitress and catches sight of a closely-cut head of hair springing up from the floor; Connie picks up a towel and tosses it coolly into the soap-filled sink with the dirty dishes. “Jean, you’re late again! Levi’s gonna have your head.”

Jean shrugs the idea off with a literal lifting of the shoulders. “Yeah, but you can cover for me, right?”

“I’ve “covered for you” six times already. You’re gonna get me fired.”

“The head honcho hasn’t talked to me about it yet,” Jean retorts, sniffing harshly as his stomach wanders back toward the savory scents wafting over from steaming plates of food. “He already knows, and if he doesn’t, then he’s denser than I thought.” Stealing another hungry glance at the plates of food waiting on the window, he reaches out and takes a circular tray in his fingers, tucking it under his arm; he grabs a towel and stuffs it into a crevice on the waist apron around his hips. “Does anyone have dibs on those plates yet?”

“Beats me.” Connie begins to shrug, but thinks better of it and allows a sly smirk to grow on his face instead. “Hey Jean.”

A single brown brow lifts above Jean’s hazel eye. “Connie, your face is really freaking me out.” The smirk does not so much as twitch, and Jean finds himself wincing visibly at the continued gesture. “Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? I swear to god if you don’t tell me what’s up, I’ll call you out on your baldness for the rest of the night.”

“Hey, _Jean~_ ?” Connie’s voice takes on an almost sing-songy tone, and Jean finds himself shuddering inwardly.

“ _What_ , Charlie Brown?”

“So, Mikasa...”

“What about her, _Aang_ ?”

“I’m not _that_ bald, Jean! I have… head-stubble.”

“Professor X?”

“Will you let me—?”

“Popeye.”

“Andy Warhol!”

“How do you even know who that _is_ , Connie?!”

The grin that graces Connie’s face is a bit more acceptable than the one that preceded it (though only a bit). “You called me Connie~.”

“I’ll call you a hell of a lot of other things if you don’t _get on with it_. Now what’s up with Mikasa? Is she alright? Did that moron Eren tell her off again?” Come to think of it, “moron” and “Eren” are rather similar… Perhaps he’s a Meren.

No, Jean, that’s the epitome of stupid.

“No, nothing like that…” Connie shakes his head vigorously, motioning to the plates of food stacked on the window’s countertop. “See that small plate of ravioli over there?”

“See it?” A tiny groan slips past Jean’s lips; he gnashes his teeth and sets his jaw in attempt to hold back any more precluded noises. “I can _smell_ it.”

“Well, what if I told you that _that_ plate was ordered by a certain dark-haired damsel, who is sitting _just outside_ , waiting for a hopeless hero to come deliver it?”

Connie’s voice fades from Jean’s comprehension mid-sentence, however, as the plot ensuing slowly delves its way into the depths of his mind. Surely this cannot be—surely this is naught but some sort of sick ploy, a devious trick set by either Baldy himself or by the universe (Jean decided long ago that his stroke of ill luck is all the result of the universe holding some personal grudge against him—probably his kickass hair). After these dragging, monotonous months of eyeing Mikasa from afar and nothing more, he now has the opportunity to engage in casual conversation—and to _serve her_ no less? He’s never been one for the master-and-servant relationship, but at this point it sounds as good to his wild heart as the food sitting on the counter sounds to his stomach. Swallowing hard, Jean steals another quick, questioning glance at his shorter companion. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!” His arms fold over his chest, which presently huffs out in an attempted display of confidence. “I’m not stupid, and I wouldn’t try to mess with ya or anything.”

(Which is utter BS, Jean thinks with a snort, as Connie has made it a routine make his life as miserable as humanly possible in the past—on Jean’s twentieth birthday, Connie convinced everyone to buy a bunch of elderly gag gifts. Jean wound up getting a pink walking cane, a bulk pack of denture paste, and a subscription to a local Bingo Parlor for his birthday that year. He consequently gave Connie a black eye the next day and apologized the day after that. They go to Bingo Bash together every Sunday.)

Why, if this is true, then Jean might have a real chance to talk to Mikasa! Asking her out is the ultimate goal (immediate marriage is out of the question—he hasn’t found his grandma’s old wedding ring anywhere yet, so he’d rather hold off on that for now), but he figures he could work his way up and save that for later in the evening, after he’s had a chance to appeal to her. Oh, this is almost too perfect! All he needs to do is freshen up a bit and—no, stop, Jean, that’s hella stupid, there’s no time for that! Her food is getting colder by the second, and going to the restroom to primp up is unnecessary and kind of girly, so there is no way in hell he’s wasting any more time than he already has. Already _is_. Shit, time is ticking as he stands here mulling things over with a stupidly vacant expression on his face! Stop, Jean!

Shaking his head with vigor, Jean hastily reaches up with his free hand to muss up the top of his hair, frantically peering between the platters of food and the top of Connie’s stubble-head. “Ah-uhh, how do I look? There’s nothing stuck in my teeth, is there?”

“Your teeth are as yellow as always, now go get that food before someone else does, good god!”

“Awesome, thanks Homer.”

“No problem, Vinny.”

“Who’s Vinny?”

“Go, already!” With that, Connie steps forward and presses his hands to Jean’s arm, shoving him toward the window and almost causing the plates to topple over onto the floor; luckily, they only shift. “What’re you waiting for?”

“Nothing—get your grubby hands off of my arm before you push me into the sauce!” Shifting away from Connie’s hands, Jean untucks the tray from under his arm and sets it atop the counter; he loads one plate of mushroom ricotta ravioli and a relatively small bottle of white wine onto the tray’s surface, trying to arrange them in a way that is as aesthetically pleasing as a ceramic plate and glass bottle can possibly get—this needs to be perfect, and he’ll be damned if it’s faulty tray Feng-shui that keeps him from exchanging words with his dear Mikasa. He rearranges the wine bottle once, twice, before settling with the upper right corner of the tray—but not too far to the upper right, because that’s just a sin—and subconsciously releases a shuddery breath he was unaware of holding. Here it goes—there’s no stopping him now. He _will_ speak to that beautiful woman—hear her sultry, smooth voice in return, meet those gorgeous eyes of hers (he knows not what color they are though—he’s never been quite close enough to see), maybe even run his fingers through those silken black-as-night strands of hair, feather-soft as a raven’s wingtips, billowing gently with every subtle movement of her perfect head atop that long neck…

Dang. For never having been within three feet of Mikasa, Jean can sure as hell visualize. He ought to become a poet, really, if the whole college shebang doesn’t work out like he wants it to.

Scratch that. Only nerds become poets. And while he might be a nerd in some respects (who isn’t, really?), he is not a literary nerd. He’s not a literary anything. He’s Jean Fucking Kirschstein, not Jean Fucking Whitman.

Clearing his throat dismissively at himself, Jean eyes the tray and ever-so-slightly lifts it up on his fingers, carefully adjusting the weight on his palm before bringing it further up, closer to his bicep. That’s probably the best height for the weight of the tray… right? He swallows again, willing down the tremors that threaten to slink along his skin. Now isn’t the time to get jittery—when does he _ever_ get jittery about anything? It’s not like Mikasa will be his first girlfriend or anything; why, of course he’s asked girls out before. Of course. Jean Kirschstein does not have ill luck in those sorts of endeavors, and he certainly didn’t avoid girls at every cost in high school out of sheer lack of balls (in the figurative sense, he assures you). Which isn’t to say that he does not have an interest in girls—he’s  _definitely_ not asexual, and he’s never been attracted to guys or anything, so that leaves being gay out too (despite what his mother seems to think). Come to think of it, why has he always suffered such rotten luck in the romance department? Is he truly so unapproachable? He wouldn’t think that _that’s_ the issue here—after all, he generally tries to just be himself, and he’s not overly unfriendly (unless your name is Meren Jaeg—screw it, yeah, that mock-nickname is stupid). He’s not unattractive, surely? He has never thought so, at least. It’s not like he has some kind of disease.

Maybe women simply avoid him because his last name is so bizarre. Who wants to marry a guy and take the name “Kirschabblaghfshtinstein”?

No, no, that’s stupid too; girls have married far worse, and some don’t even take their husband’s surname, so that’s not the problem either.

Oh, fuck his life. (He’d wager that the universe is to blame for this, too).

Slowly maneuvering away from the window, Jean hooks a tray stand under his arm and proceeds cautiously out of the kitchen, eyes darting this way and that in search of Mikasa’s familiar head of black hair in the (thankfully sparse) crowd of customers. As he dodges a chair to his right, however, his hazel eyes, despite their scrutinizing precision, catch no such sight in the dimly-lit expanse of the dining area. Wha—? Is he just missing something? Was this all some little ploy of Connie’s, in some strange attempt at humor? Or perhaps there’s less to this awkward ordeal than he’s acknowledging; after all, Mikasa could simply be in the bathroom, or taking a phone call outside or something. Come to think of it, he really should have taken a table number… Whoops. “Guess there’s still time to do that...” With a small sigh, he spins on his heel and takes a step in the direction of the kitchen across the way, a small frown on his face as he mulls over his options in his mind. Well, he supposes he can find the table number in the back, and if that doesn’t—

“Ack—!”

His foot catches on something suddenly, and everything that happens consequently is a bit of a blur (quite literally, as stumbling forward is a rather quick motion and—forget it, he’s fucking _falling_ , who has time to clarify anything when they’re _falling_ ?). His stomach churns and his eyes roll as he trips over whatever-it-is and collapses onto the table in front of him; the clothed edge of the table juts out into his mid-gut, ushering forth a low string of mouthed curses at the pain as the air is knocked from him for a brief moment. His head spins; blinking, glazed eyes remain unable to focus as the dizziness gradually dissipates from his system. What just happened, exactly…?

“A-Augh…”

So he tripped over something… Or did he slip on the flooring? His shin hurts a little, so he assumes he tripped over a shoe or a table leg. Lifting a hand to his head, he weaves his fingers in and out of his hair, massaging his scalp absently as his brain scrambles to correct its current state of disarray. He is still on his feet, at least, though his upper torso is draped over some poor customer’s table (which must not have had any food or glasses or anything on it, which is a colossal relief, given the fact that his stomach would be a sloppy, bloody mess if this were the case).

“E…Excuse me…” A voice perks up from beside him—hesitant, trembling with some form of discomfort (be it natural awkwardness or anger or sadness or fear, Jean cannot quite discern). “Uhh…”

“… Hah?” Jean’s neck cranes to the right, curiously inquiring about the voice that tried to get his attention so abruptly. “If you have something to sa—oh _shiiiiit_.”

This table _does_ belong to a customer, and while said customer might not be Mikasa (for this he is eternally thankful to the deity(ies) of your choice), his face doesn’t turn any less crimson out of sheer humiliation. He is mostly unacquainted with this man; the freckled face strikes him as familiar, and Jean believes he has served him before. A thin mop of styled mocha hair sits atop his head, dripping in the front where the bangs were splattered with marinara.

Marinara…?

Bits of pasta litter the tablecloth beside Jean’s body, staining the white fabric a dark, seasoned scarlet; while most of the little ravioli noodles remained either in the (now upturned) bowl, a few have strayed off and now rest nestled in the customer’s lap, along with the (thankfully saved) bottle of wine. The wine glass flew off of the tray when Jean tripped; it hit the floor and shattered a few meters away, by the kitchen door—Connie is already hastily trying to sweep it up before Levi comes out and realizes the horrifying mistake Jean has just made.

This is _so_ going to cost him his job…

With a small gulp, Jean gradually lifts himself up straight again, brushing off the front of his uniform which, luckily, received only a minimal amount marinara splatter. Albeit hesitantly, his gaze drifts back over to the poor customer sitting beside him, who has proceeded to rise as well; his fingers latch onto the napkin on the tabletop.

“Oh god, I’m—I didn’t—” Jean’s words catch in his throat and his mouth goes dry. What does one say in a situation such as this? “Sorry” just doesn’t seem to quite capture the meaning behind what he means to say. Instead, he hopes that the apology and embarrassment show in their shared glance as he and this marinara-speckled stranger exchange an awkward stare; at last, he remembers the existence of his lips, teeth, and tongue, and speaks coherently once more. “—I have clothes in my car, if you need to change. When your order comes out, it’ll be free of charge! Uh… Sorry, dude. My bad.”

Well, nobody ever said “coherently” equated to “eloquently”.

“Ah… No, that’s okay, my clothes aren’t that bad…” Clearing his throat, the customer shakes a stray ravioli noodle off of his sleeve with a tiny grimace; he sets the bottle of wine down on the table next to the upturned platter. “I’ll just go clean up in the bathroom… And, uh, this _is_ my food… So…” He clears his throat, forcing a grin at the absurd awkwardness of the situation; a few probing stares are directed at the two as they struggle to form intelligible sentences, but he pays them no heed (Jean is still a vivid shade of red from humiliation, but his face has been like that for a while now). “I’ll take the same order as before. You don’t need to add anything; free food is a plus in itself. Thanks.”

……

Did he just say that _this_ was _his_ order?

Mikasa’s plate was—

_Connie, you sorry son of a—_

Forget it. Connie’s not worth the calories burned establishing simple thought processes.

“Look, sir—”

“Marco.”

“Hm?”

A small, more natural smile forms beneath glops of tomato paste and basil. “My name. It’s Marco—Marco Bodt.”

Now hardly seems like the time for introductions, but if it prolongs the inevitable fate of Marco complaining to the manager, then Jean will stall to his deathbed (which, given Levi’s location in the office in the back, is probably sooner than one would think). “Oh. Uh, Jean Kirschstein.” He reaches forward and gives Marco’s hand a brief, firm shake. “Look, I can’t stop you from complaining to the higher ups, but—seriously, _don’t_ complain to the higher-ups. Especially Levi. Or Irvin. Or anyone, for that matter. I can’t afford to lose another job and—”

“Calm down, that’s not—!” Marco’s hands rise in defense, and his smile gives a little twitch of uncertainty at Jean’s sudden forwardness. “That’s not what I was going to do anyway.”

“… Oh.” _Way to jump to conclusions and make an idiot of yourself, Jean._ His eyes linger over Marco’s messy face once more before remembering something with a quick downward glance; he tugs the towel out of his apron and tosses it to Marco, who comes close to catching the towel, but misses slightly. It plummets to the floor, but the freckled man wastes no time in picking it up. “Not the best catch, are you?”

Marco shoots up suddenly at that question, one eye widening in some sort of frantic uncertainty; this guy sure is jittery today, a quality he cannot recall the man having beforehand when he served him a few weeks ago. “What did you—oh. The towel? It’s just my depth-perception, that’s all. It’s a little off sometimes… Most of the time… Don’t worry about it.”

What is he implying? Jean has half a mind to question him, and parts his lips to do precisely that, though relinquishes this desire upon another, closer look at Marco’s face; his right eye, though akin to the other in its sweet chocolate iris, possesses a glossy haze—a clouded sheen, not overly noticeable initially (at least, not to Jean), but there undoubtedly in this moment of realization. “… You’re blind.” It comes out as a blunt statement more so than a question; Jean does not comprehend exactly how he has just spoken at first, but as understanding sinks into his system, a faint blush reconquers his cheeks. “U-Uh, I mean…”

“Only in one eye.” Marco’s face veils itself momentarily as he dabs gently away at the marinara caked to his nose. “And I was born like this, so it’s all I’ve ever really known. No biggie.” He continues to wipe at his face, slowly wandering in the general direction of the restroom; Jean follows subconsciously as Marco continues to engage in conversation. “I’m surprised you didn’t figure that out earlier. That’s the first thing people usually seem to notice.”

“I don’t pay that much attention…” Shrugging his shoulders, Jean cracks a small grin—this damn Marco guy has one hell of an infectious smile. “So anyway, what did you order again? Mushroom Ricotta Ravioli—the smaller portion?”

With another quick wipe of the face, Marco nods his head. “Yep, that’s it… What’s your favorite thing on the menu here?”

One of Jean’s eyebrows rises inquiringly at the sudden question. “Me? I almost never eat here; even with employee discount, I can’t afford it…” The interest in the other’s stare does not falter, however, as he looks on at the shorter man expectantly. “Uh… I’ve only ever had this one lamb dish. It was _really_ good. Pretty expensive though—actually, if you have a free meal, then you might _want_ to go for something on the pricier side.” A quick wink strikes Jean’s eye. “That’s what I would do, anyway.”

“I’ll think about it, thanks.” Another swift, fleeting look hops from one pair of eyes to another, a visual exchange between two, a look of one meaning for a single party and an entirely different meaning for the other. “It was nice meeting you, Jean. Even if it wasn’t under great circumstances…”

The manner in which Marco’s tongue utters his name sends a trail of goose bumps along Jean’s spine; he shudders involuntarily at the sudden feeling and rubs it off with an incredulous frown. “U-Uh, yeah, you too. Fuck; that was weird…”

“Hm?”

“Just… Just let me know if you need those clothes I talked about earlier. You know, if you decide you don’t wanna hang around smelling like tomatoes.”

“I think it’s too late for that.” A tiny chuckle erupts from Marco’s chest, like a little barking mongrel longing to communicate with others though a fence. “But thanks anyway. I’ll see you around, I guess? How long does your shift last?”

“I’m here until close tonight, so… Until ten?” What time is it now? Six? Seven? Subconsciously, his eyes flit downward to the plastic watch on his wrist and, in a flash of apprehension, tugs his sleeve hurriedly downward to cover the blue Bubbles time-teller with his cuff. He had forgotten about this tacky piece of nineties cartoon memorabilia (another kind gift from Connie, from his fifteenth birthday—the time presently reads 7:14). “Only three hours tonight. I’m not leaving anytime soon though.”

Marco gives another curt nod. “Alright. I’d better go get the rest of this sauce off… Bye.”

“See ya.” And with a final, minute smile, Jean watches Marco vanish behind the restroom door, which swings on its hinges once, twice, forward, back, and silently slows to a stop.

 

~w~w~w~

 

“Hey, Connie?”

Pushing the door into an open swing, Jean steps into the kitchen with large strides as he scuttles over to the window between the chefs and the wait staff; he sticks a note to the top of the frame and gives a double knock, signifying the arrival of another order. “Connie?”

“Huh—oh, yeah?” Connie shakes his head a few times, rubbing tiredly at his eyes as he leans against the wall for support. “What’s up? Ever find Mikasa?”

Oh.

Mikasa.

… Right.

… Shit, he had forgotten about that.

“Whoa, hey, Jean—!”

In a single, breakneck motion, Jean whips his hand out and grasps a handful of Connie’s uniform, grabbing the cloth tightly in his fingers and yanking his little, lanky form upward; they meet at eye-level. “Connie, what the _hell_ are you trying to pull, anyway?”

“Ow! What are you talking about?”

“Mikasa’s not here, is she?” Jean’s voice rises in volume, a rigidness running along his bones as he rattles Connie’s body a few times out of frustration. His eyes light up a vivid amber, light catching hazel as he searches Connie’s (relatively vapid) face for some sort of answer. “You set me up back there! You know, I dumped a plate of food on someone because of you!”

“I swear, Jean, it wasn’t my idea!” Vigorously, Connie shakes his head to and fro and tries to wriggle free of Jean’s clutches. “Put me down before you rip my shirt!”

Gnashing his teeth together behind bared lips, Jean reluctantly shoves Connie away and relinquishes his hold on his shirtcollar. “Alright, then, fess up; whose idea was this?”

“Whose do you think?” Readjusting his collar, Connie turns toward a plate of food on the window counter, sliding a tray out onto the bar beside it and beginning to arrange the dishes on its surface.

“Some friend of Mikasa’s?”

Connie nods once, indifferent. “And if you honestly think it’s Armin, then we need to have a talk.”

“ _Jaeger…_ ” So, that’s Eren’s game, eh? Although he can see very few ulterior motives for Eren to do something so downright lame, he can’t help but feel a little put off by this explanation. Sure, Eren is like a flea that feeds on his blood from beneath his hair, and no amount of mediation can ever rid him of the Jaegerscum, but the other man usually has a little more class, a little more _elaboration_ in his schemes. Was Eren’s plan simply to lure him into the open looking like an idiot? Was Eren trying to involve Marco in his ploy all along, or had that been simple coincidence? Was Mikasa supposed to be here initially, and she had to leave for some reason or another? Something is missing in this supposed ploy—Jean can feel it in his stomach, but there isn’t much more that can be said at this point. It’s over anyway; might as well move on and confront Eren about it tomorrow, during their next shift (he hasn’t seen Eren all say, so he assumes that their shifts don’t overlap this evening). “God, Jaeger… Now I have that Marco guy to worry about too, thanks to him…”

At the mention of Marco’s name, Connie perks up suddenly, turning to face Jean as he grabs another plate of pasta from the window. “Marco?”

“Yeah; the guy I dumped food on earlier.” Jean jerks his head in the direction of the door, motioning towards the dining area with a thumb shot over his shoulder. “Seems nice enough—I offered him free dinner and all—but he’s been here for _three fucking hours_ , and I swear he’s had his eyes glued to me the whole evening. I don’t think he’s even gotten his free dish yet! It’s been behind the window this whole time, so I can’t reach it, and every time I look back at him, he’s just _sitting there_. Not gonna lie, I think he’s a stalker.”

This conclusion earns a subdued snigger from Connie’s direction, though it cuts off the moment Jean turns back to look at him. “A stalker? Seriously?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s possible. He could be gay, or maybe I just look like someone he knows or something. Beats me. But he’s creeping me out.” Jean steps back and unties the apron from his waist, pulling it over his head and off of his body; he drapes it neatly on the hanger by the door and releases a small sigh. Another evening on the job has waned to a tranquil night, save for his potential stalker, and it is usually this time of night that Jean finds himself relishing the most; the traffic has died down and the night life has yet to begin, thus creating the perfect period of time to spend in whatever way he pleases.

(At least, this is what he would think, were he not being watched through the wall by a stranger who probably has x-ray vision. Yikes. The thought drives a tremor along Jean’s spine. Of course, if Marco _did_ have x-ray vision, then he could probably see through far more than just these walls…

Oh dear lord…

At the same time, however, Marco having x-ray vision can imply that his potential stalker is, in fact, a superhero, and even Jean has to admit that having Superman stalk you is pretty damn awesome, in a way. Marco’s hair isn’t so different from Clark Kent’s, either. He can see it all falling into place now—Marco Bodt: Freckled Wonder—

… It’s probably best if he goes straight home and sleeps tonight).

“Maybe he just doesn’t have anything else to do today or something.” Connie shrugs again. “Dunno, man, but I have one more table to feed, so… Move it or lose it.”

“… What table?”

“Uh… table five?”

Table five, eh? With a brief glimpse at the plates on Connie’s tray, Jean spots the only food he needs to know exists (not for his own nutritional purposes, for ravioli is but a small portion of the ever-vast Food Pyramid of Jean Kirschstein, but for the purposes of deduction!

And apparently he is now Sherlock Holmes. Fan-fucking-tastic. Stupid Bodt. Stupid, stupid Jaeger.

This has absolutely nothing to do with sleep deprivation on his part.)

“That’s Marco’s table…” He swallows. Well, it’s probably best if he approaches this issue head-first. After all, what’s to prevent Marco from returning the next evening, and every other day after that—why, the freckled weirdo could follow him home, for pete’s sake! “Give me that tray.”

“Huh? What are you—hey, Jean!” Without so much as an utterance, Jean pries the tray of food from Connie’s hands—he takes extra precaution to make sure that the plates are balanced before doing so (there is no way in hell that he’s going to repeat the earlier mess). “Jean!”

“I’ve got this one. You can go home.”

And so it is that Jean Kirschstein, spinning on his heel and turning away, bursts through the swinging door and maneuvers his way into the dining area. His eyes catch sight of Marco almost instantly, who seems preoccupied with his phone again (texting away, Jean assumes, given the rapid tapping of his fingers on the little buttons—he still has a flip phone with a telephone “2-ABC” keyboard, good god…); said freckled man appears to catch a glimpse of Jean out of his peripheral vision, however, and presses his phone shut with his left hand—it is shoved almost instantaneously into his coat pocket. Jean flinches a little, swallowing again in anticipation. This is nerve-racking— be it because he’s approaching a stalker or because he might very well drop the tray a second time; he’s not quite sure which option frightens him more at this point. Their eyes meet, cool chestnut and striking amber, the former alight and serene and the latter erratic and clutching the pupil like a lifeline—like an ever-consuming weed. With a quick intake of breath through scarcely parted lips, Jean sets the tray down on a nearby table, sliding it near the center to avoid any chance of knocking the tray again. The atmosphere of the dining area is strange, almost unsettling—silence—not a noise abound, save for a few clinking pans resonating in from the kitchen. The sign on the front door has been flipped to “closed”, and every other customer has either left or is in the process of receiving a receipt to leave.

And then there’s Marco Bodt.

Damned, sweet Marco Bodt.

If this man is truly a stalker, then his art has been perfected, for it is incredibly difficult for Jean to see much of anything beneath that façade of glee (for real, though—does this man ever stop _smiling_ ? Jean dumped a tray of tomato sauce and wheat glop all over him—what _fucker_ isn’t at least _deterred_ by something like that?). “Marco?”

“Yes?” And his _voice_. It’s not super giggly or anything, but it might as well be, as far as Jean’s concerned. Puberty didn’t treat him well, that’s for certain—maybe when he’s not happy it drops or something? That would certainly be interesting, Jean muses with a little smirk. It’s almost tempting to fling some more pasta at his face, just to see if he can piss him off enough to lower his voice an octave.

Okay, so maybe it’s not actually _that_ high, and yes, Jean has heard worse from guys many, many times before. But that doesn’t mean anything. It also doesn’t mean Jean is pulling at straws for anything to lure him away from this curious freckled entity sitting so contently before him but _damn_ is that smile inviting. Were Marco a girl, then you’d better believe that he would—

No.

Stop that.

Focus.

“… Your food’s here.” Clearing his throat, Jean picks a plate up off of the tray and sets it gently on the table in front of Marco’s face, trying to steady his trembling fingers. “About time too. Sorry if it’s cold, but—you _did_ wait three hours for it.”

Marco’s smile falls for a moment at Jean’s tone, and it’s clear to Jean in that moment that he has made a mistake. The delight dies in his face for a second or two, and the glint in his eyes fades; the look that replaces it is one of sadness, one of a bitter sort of sweetness—a smile soon returns, but it’s far from the same smile that has graced Jean throughout the entirety of the evening. “Oh… right. I’m sorry if this seems too forward…” A faint pink rises on Marco’s cheeks, catching Jean slightly off-guard but reaffirming the idea that Marco is either really creepy or really gay for him. Or both. He could always be both. “I just… I haven’t dated in a while, you know?”

_… He could always be both._

The sudden utterance of the d-word draws forth a little gasp from Jean; a look of utter perplexity crosses his face—a bright crimson dusts his ears, his eyebrows rise a bit, his jaw unclenches, and his eyes widen. So… is Marco trying to ask him out? To say that Jean is utterly confused is utterly understated. There’s still something about this that seems a little… off? He can’t quite place his finger on it, but like hell is he going to just go along with this bizarre proposal. “Well, I’ve never dated at all, so, uh… Guess we’re even on that field, but—” His gaze hits the floor. “Uhhh—god _damn_ this is awkward—I can’t go out with you. Yeah. Sorry, man, but I really have no idea who you are, and, like I’ve said, I’ve never dated before, and I wouldn’t know where to start, so the answer is flat-out _no_.”

“I could learn along with you?” Marco clears his throat, glancing down at this plate of ravioli with a wee grimace; Jean almost pities the hungry man—cold pasta is kind of gross, really. “I-I’ve never dated guys before, but that really doesn’t matter too much, right? We can make it work; I’m willing to try it if you are too.”

It doesn’t take long for this awkward conversation to prompt a similar grimace on Jean’s face. “Did I say or do anything this evening that would make you think I’d want to date you? I’m not saying you’re not a nice guy, but I’m _really_ confused at this point. What the actual hell are you talking about?”

Marco’s grimace-grin-hybrid twitches downward into a look of bafflement. “You mean… You don’t want to…?”

“No!” Jean shakes his head and places his forehead in his hands. “Not right now anyway—that’s nuts! Sorry if that’s disappointing, but… I mean, _what the hell_ —I don’t even—what made you think that I did would in the first place?!”

“Well…” Marco rubs anxiously at his chin for a moment, fingers scratching absently at the skin as he ponders over what to say amidst the uncomfortable atmosphere. “Eren told me he had a friend that was interested in me—someone who served me here. I’ve only been here once though, and you were my waiter, so I figured it was you. He never gave me a name, so maybe I’m wrong?”

“Jaeger?”

“Yeah. I, uh… I haven’t seen anyone—uh, romantically—in almost five years, to be honest, and I’ve been need— _wanting_ to find somebody that fits the bill. It gets lonely, you know? And—”

But Marco’s ramblings fade to silence in Jean’s state of consciousness; the shorter man slips into the crevices of his mind, struggling to put all of the pieces of this convoluted puzzle together into some discernable shape. So… According to Connie, Eren set Jean up to find Mikasa—no, to _not_ find Mikasa—right? And now Superfreckle is saying that Eren set Marco up to ask Jean out? What’s going on here?

(And did Marco just say that Eren referred to Jean as a friend? Pah! Now he _knows_ this story is riddled with baloney and bullshittery. Stupid Eren. Stupid Connie. Stupid Wonderfreckle—).

“—but you might as well eat.”

“—what?” Jean’s voice grows blunter by the minute, and he clamps his lips shut instantly. Nothing he says is coming out right tonight, it seems. Bugger. Perhaps if he takes a moment to collect himself, he can actually muster up something in coherent English. “Eat? Eat food?” Apparently not.

A faint laugh, light and airy, slips from Marco’s mouth. “Do you usually eat things other than food? Do I even want to know?”

“Honestly? No, you don’t.” Jean shakes his head, clears his throat, and, with a swift glance at Marco’s face on last time, slides into the chair opposite him. Well, at least he knows that this guy isn’t a superhuman gay stalker or anything like that (because that would be ridiculous), and given that they were both duped by Eren, Jean figures they could learn to have quite a bond—not romantically, but as friends, at least. Jean can always use more of those. What he has now in the friendship department hardly qualifies anyway (especially Connie, who barely counts as an entity in the first place). “Seriously though, I’m starving. I forgot to eat before my shift. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Sounds awful.” Marco nods his head in agreement before chancing a glance to his left; that infectious, toothy grin suddenly spreads across his slightly squared face. “But, you know, you have food too.”

An eyebrow lifts at the gesture. “I wha—oh, you didn’t.” Following’s Marco’s good eye, Jean looks to his right at the tray sitting on the table beside them. Surely enough, nestled on the edge of the tray near the center of the table is a plate of pre-cut lamb leg, garnished in some unidentifiable green seasoning and accompanied by asparagus with an oil-based dressing and _ohhh_ is Jean’s mouth watering at the sight. “Skip dating; just marry me now.”

Marco beams wider as Jean reaches over to pull the plate of lamb onto their table and sits it in front of himself. “That’s why I asked what you liked earlier. I honestly thought you were going to have dinner with me after your shift.” His hand lifts to rub the back of his neck; his fingers curl a short strand of dark hair at the nape in an absent manner. “The more you think about all of this, the more awkward it gets, huh?”

Jean glances up suddenly mid-bite; he sets his fork down and scrambles to chew the all-too-large bite of meat in his mouth before swallowing and covering his mouth with a napkin. “Well, at the base of things, yeah—this was hella awkward.” He swallows again. “But now that we’ve sorted things out, it’s pretty cool. I mean, we’re eating food—” this ushers out a light snort and a grin from the taller man, “and just… chilling? Nothing wrong with that.”

“That’s true…” Marco’s grin falters a little, though only out of contentment; it’s sort of refreshing, really—his constant seeping of joy. Given Jean’s not-so-fantastic-college-student lifestyle, it could be to his benefit to keep him around for a while. “So… Ah, what do you do? I mean, other than working here.”

“Not much.” This probably isn’t the best way to win someone over, but lying never got him anywhere, so he gave that up long ago. Maybe that’s why he’s never been the most socially-adept in this fabricated world of lies and falsehoods. “I’m finishing up my third year of college.”

The fork in Marco’s hand pauses suddenly on the way to his mouth, and his face contorts into a mild confusion. “College…?” He seems to mull this over in his head; Jean is mostly uncertain how to interpret this, however given the circumstances. Is college good for Marco? Bad? He’d love to know why, if that is the case, but—well, best see how things play out from here and _damn_ his lamb _is_ cold. “How old are you, then?”

“Twenty.” A slight heat creeps up into Jean’s face as his eyes flit to the wine bottle sitting beside Marco’s elbow; it remains entirely unopened. “Is that a problem?”

“Oh, no! Not really, I mean.” He shakes his head and takes a bite of his ravioli, wincing at the cold sliminess of the little stuffed noodles. “I’m twenty-five… That’s not a problem for _you_ , is it?”

Jean shrugs his shoulders. “Nah. It’s just five years.” Marco seems to appreciate this response and takes a sip of his wine with an unreadable smile lingering devilishly behind the cloudy white beverage.

They sit like this in silence for some time, taking a bite or two of their respective meals, exchanging fleeting glances and gentle grins, gestures and guffaws and other such things, simplicity at its finest art as it dances between their mirthful faces in the dim glow of the restaurante’s fixtures above. Despite having no real encounter prior to this meeting, they hit it off surprisingly well, in Jean’s general opinion, as they converse about their lives—aspirations, childhood, little moments shared between bites and sips in the comfort of one another. The lack of people puts Jean at ease, much to his own surprise; everything becomes so much more personal… He never thought he would enjoy such heart-to-heart small talk with a complete stranger, but Marco retains a quality—an inkling of some indiscernible trait, be it his sweet disposition or his calm mannerisms or perhaps even the way his freckles stand out in such fervency against his lightly-tanned face (Jean can’t help but wonder if they would glow under a blacklight—he vows to test this theory in the near future). Whatever it may be, Marco has enraptured him—encased his attention for the remainder of the night—to the point where, midway through their meal, he whips out his phone and exchanges numbers without so much as a shred of hesitation. The other man obliges happily and provides him with said information, dodging all of Jean’s mockeries regarding his prehistoric cell phone.

It is far from what either of them came here to do tonight, yet neither party would have it any other way.

And, as Jean will rise from his chair with the intention of making his departure, Marco will follow in suit, shadowing him to the car where, with a swift peck to the temple, he will say a simple goodbye for the remainder of the night.

Marco will successfully ask Jean out a week later.

~w~w~w~

“Yeah…” Jostling the cell phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder, Jean readjusts himself in the uncomfortable leather seat of Marco’s Mini Cooper, nibbling his lower lip as he shoves his fist against a bag of clothes looming behind his head. “Look, Connie, I’m gonna need to call you back—Marco’s car is smaller than you and I have laundry pushing me into the dashboard.”

At this comment, Marco simply sighs, shaking his head and giving a little, contented smile; he gave up on pleasing Jean’s expensive tastes months ago. Turning the wheel a bit further, he pulls slowly into the neighborhood, turning his head zealously in attempt to see everything in his general vicinity—while driving with one eye is entirely possible, it can certainly prove difficult (Jean sometimes has a hard time wrapping his head around the concept that Marco has been half-blind _his whole life_ and that he’s still _perfectly capable_ of doing things like driving a few hours and popping a bag of microwave popcorn—err, not at once, of course, for that would be impressive for anyone, really).

“Okay, sounds good. Later, Lex… Wha—how the _actual hell_ do I resemble Cruella DeVil? You know, whatever…” With a final snort, he hangs up the phone and stuffs it in his pocket to the best of his ability; his other hand reaches awkwardly behind his shoulder to shove the bags away from him once more. “Remind me again why you don’t have a truck or something?”

“Because I usually don’t need one?” Marco sighs semi-dejectedly once more, readjusting the rear-view mirror above his head. “Besides, this is cheaper in the long run.”

“By, what, three thousand?” His arms fold across his chest; his foot taps absently to the beat of the quiet dance tune spewing out from the radio. “Are we almost there?”

One of Marco’s eyebrows rises in curiosity, and a tiny frown grows on his lips. “Are you okay? Just… calm down. We’re almost there; just a few more turns.” As per usual, his frown hardly remains beyond five seconds, and is soon replaced by a tiny, almost docile grin; as he slows to stop behind a crosswalk, he leans across and presses a quick kiss to the corner of Jean’s lips. “We got this.”

Jean’s face flushes a furious pink, though even he cannot subdue the happy smile tugging at his lips; it isn’t long before he mirrors Marco’s smirk full-force, despite the twitchiness of his unwilling lips. “You’re so full of it, you know that? Well, whatever. All I know is that my stuff better fit in your house somewhere; I’m not going back to that grubby old apartment and unpacking everything _again_.” As the car begins moving once more, jaggedly rolling along on what Jean believes to be the bumpiest road in existence, his face turns toward his lover in the driver’s seat and he exhales slowly, finally willing down the majority of the embarrassing red that always prickles his cheeks when Marco decides to be forward. At this point, after dating for four months or so, Jean can’t really say that he cares anymore—sure, Connie and Eren poke fun at him at work sometimes, but Jean now has blackmail of the both of them at his disposal (after one considerably curious night of Bingo Bash—it’s best if the details are left under veil for now). Nothing they say or do can render his affections toward his companion false or weak. Sure, he had had an interest in Mikasa—and to say that he doesn’t still find her attractive as can be is a downright lie—but a relationship based solely on physical attraction would only have lasted so long anyway.

And, besides, Marco’s not a bad looker, himself.

“Alright, we’re here!” Putting the vehicle in park, Marco turns off the Cooper and removes the keys, turning to grin widely at Jean. “Ready? A whole new chapter in our lives… It’s pretty exciting, huh?” He voice trails a bit as he studies Jean’s eyes more closely; a questioning eyebrow lifts above the working eye. “Jean, what are you thinking?”

Jean’s gaze flits up and down a few times, and the grin on his face spreads all the wider as a sudden multitude of thoughts sneak into the fissures of his mind. “I think you know _exactly_ what I’m thinking.”

A brief chuckle slips out past Marco’s lips as he gives a little shake of the head. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen too much for a while. Especially in this house, with Nico around…”

“What, your cat?” This earns a half-stifled snicker from Jean as he unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door to the Cooper; Marco mimics the action in suit, shutting the door behind him and peering over at Jean with an unreadable look on his freckled face (which, ordinarily, Jean would interpret as a sign of the Armageddon, but, in this moment, he is far too preoccupied with enjoying himself, relishing life, and entirely adoring the life he has ahead of him—at least, for the summer; then his fourth year of college swings around and he doesn’t wager that’ll be a particularly celebratory time). “Call me crazy, Marco, but I don’t think your cat will be too concerned if it walks in on—what’s wrong?” A sudden concern laces his voice and his grin falters into a look of utmost confusion. “Why are you looking at me like that? Sorry if I insulted your cat and all, but—”

“Jean…” Marco’s chocolate stare glues itself upon Jean’s hazel, unwavering as the older man gradually maneuvers his way around the front of the Cooper to come closer to his boyfriend. “… I don’t have a cat…” At Jean’s inquiring eyebrow lift, Marco’s own brows knit together in the center of his forehead, and a horrified expression, wide-eyed and jaw-slackened, replaces his typical glee. He claps a hand to his forehead, running it back through his hair once and gripping it in the back in a nervous manner. “Oh god…”

A small, baffled scowl forms on Jean’s face. “What?”

“Nico…” He repeats the name once, twice, and chances an anxious half-smile; when his lips part to speak again, each word rolls out sluggishly, unsteadily, as if assuring himself that whatever point he is trying to make comes out clear as day. “You know… _Nico_. My _son_.”

“Oh.”

“…”

“…”

“… Jean?”

It takes a minute for Jean to process Marco’s words fully, but it is upon such comprehension that his breath hitches in his throat and his eyes expand about twice their normal size; all thought processes cease in that moment, and were his heart not erratically threatening to burst from his chest, Jean might just die where he stands.

… Did Marco just say—

—what sort of sick joke—

—what—

—how—

—in—

“Your _what_ ?!”

~w~w~w~


	2. Chapter 2

And so it is that Jean regrets ever dumping that plate of pasta on Marco’s face all those months ago.

He should have simply ignored his groundless obsession with Mikasa, left the plate for whomever else, watched his step—the list is really quite extensive, and there was an infinite number of potential outcomes that fateful evening. How it is that he winds up meeting a guy, falling head over heels for said guy, and discovering last-minute that said guy has a _kid_ for crying out loud—it’s all beyond him. Probably more shenanigans on the universe’s part.

It could also boil down to Eren.

… It probably boils down to Eren.

Regardless, he ends up standing in the driveway of Marco’s estate, mentally counting off the various ways in which he could escape this turn of events without further harm to his state of mind. It isn’t that he can’t handle children—it isn’t as though he has any aversion to kids, and he always figured he’d want a few eventually anyway—but there are a number of other factors that play into this, and accompanying said factors are questions that need answered as soon as humanly possible. It is true that running away from one’s problems is both immature and unfavorable, but this is bigger than he is—this very well might be more than he can take in one sitting.

“’Scuse me.” Marco’s voice snaps Jean out of his frenetic subconscious for the time being, prompting him to continue yanking his bags and briefcases from the back of the Cooper. Bearing a mild frown, Marco reaches across Jean’s slouching body and tugs a bag of clothes from a crevice between the seat and the door, where it had stuck itself on the drive from the old apartment from which Jean came (and thank the heavens, Jean thinks as a quick shudder slinks along his spine—he would bet money that a dingier building does not exist—has _never_ existed—even in the days when houses were composed of nothing but sand, adobe, and decaying bodies). Stepping back, Jean allows Marco to shimmy in front of him and peer inside through the open back door; the taller man leans into the car with the intention of snatching up a bag of cords, allowing Jean a _lovely_ view of his boyfriend’s backside, though the urge to make an advancement on him is cut short by a muffled “don’t do it, Jean” emitting from inside the little car—Jean’s frown returns and his hand flinches back to his side.

“Now…” Scooting back out of the back seat, Marco plops the bag on the ground, letting it sit in the grass as he turns to meet those familiar hazel eyes that stares distantly past his shoulder. The inside of Marco’s freckled cheek shifts noticeably as he gives it an absent nibble, screwing up his expression in thought as he studies Jean’s face for a moment; at last, he makes up his mind—a tiny sigh slips past his lips, and his arms lift as he steps forward. Either hand lands atop Jean’s shoulders, thumbs at the collar of his t-shirt, kneading in gentle circles in an (admittedly failed) attempt at easing Jean’s restlessness. “Hey, listen here. This is nothing you can’t handle—I’ve seen what you put up with every day between school and work. You and Nico are going to get along great—really. I have a lot of faith in you.”

Jean’s eyes do not meet those of his lover throughout the entirety of his little speech, much to Marco’s dismay, but that freckled face does not falter. Instead, he rubs his hands along Jean’s shoulders a few more times before removing his fingers from the top of the shirt and picking up a few more bags instead. “Just try to put on a smile for him, okay? I’m not sure how Nico will react to bringing another guy into the house. He’s used to living with one adult, not two, so I honestly have no idea how this is going to go…” A nervous grimace lingers on his face for a while before he turns away and removes his keys from the depths of his shorts pocket.

“What happened to his mom?” Jean asks suddenly, voice bitter, though not without its own shred of curiosity. This question has been nagging away at him since the revelation of Nicolas Bodt, and if he doesn’t resolve this and gather up some answers to these inquiries swimming about in his head, he very well may lose his mind. “Were you married?”

Marco pauses briefly in his stroll, tightening his grip on the bag as it digs into the flesh of his palm. He waits for Jean to catch up to him before continuing to walk along the pathway up to the door, where he pauses to meet the eyes of his lover once more. “There’s a long story behind that…” At the adamant glint in Jean’s eyes, he sighs and continues on. “I’ll tell you tonight sometime; all you need to know right now is that I’m not married. So _please_ stop looking at me like you’re a deceived mistress or something. I love _you_ , don’t worry.”

“You think _that’s_ what I’m concerned with? Seriously?” Jean’s voice grows more and more deadpan by the second. “Ah, jeez…” He smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth a few times, eyes growing minimally lazier as he peers up at Marco’s sweet face; even in moments of confusion and regret, Marco’s composure remains mostly unaltered—it just about blows his mind. Despite his stress over the ensuing situation, however, Jean can do little else at this point; even he knows that his only real option is to meet this situation head-on and do his best for this broken family. Besides, when all is said and done, he has a really strong feeling in his gut about Marco Bodt—an ever-lingering sensation telling him that Marco will play a part in altering his life for the better (arguably, he already has).

There is really no chance of Jean getting himself out of this one, is there?

“… Just open the door.”

Chancing a half-smile, Marco obliges with a small nod and jabs the keys into the lock, turning it until a resounding _click_ sounds from inside; he yanks the key out and, with a final glance in Jean’s direction (at which the younger man flips him off subtly with the hand at his side—honestly, just because he’s younger and under a lot of emotional stress right now doesn’t mean he needs coddled), places a hand on the handle and opens the door.

To say that the interior of the Bodt household is _quaint_ is a drastic understatement. While Jean has expected a simple house from the beginning (if Marco’s cell phone and forty-years-outdated fashion sense are any indicators), he never thought it would be _this_ bad.  The floor is a modern dark wood, but accented by atrocious floral wallpaper that looks like it belonged in a little girl’s room about one hundred years ago (and _lilac_ , of all things—Jean is really beginning to detest that color). The ceilings are low and the interior is generally small; lingering in the air is the ever-overwhelming scent of a fruity air freshener of some variety.  There is very little décor (which is all good for Jean, considering the unsightly number of bags he brought—most of which contain little trinkets or boxes of food, none of which are _really_ necessary, but all of which are _really necessary—_ like hell is Jean moving into any new living space without a box of Cheez-its and a roll of chocolate chip cookie dough). “… What’s up with your house?”

“Oh, yeah…” Marco utters a small chuckle into his hand, setting the bags on the floor as he shuts the door behind the two of them. “It needs some work, but… Well, now I can get your input too! That’s good, at least, right?”

“What if my input involves burning this house down and rebuilding another from the ashes?”

A faint, embarrassed scarlet blooms upon Marco’s face. “It’s not that bad… It was like this when I moved in a few years ago, and I haven’t had time to do much around the house between work and Nico…” At the mention of his boy, though, Marco seems to snap out of it, and that familiar, contented little grin reappears on his face. “Oh, right!” He cups a hand to his mouth, peering around the main living area; he receives no response in return when he calls out his son’s name. “Hold on a minute, let me go check his room real quick…” His good eye (the sightless of which is hidden beneath a patch at the moment) lands on Jean one more time, alight with bliss at the idea of introducing his boyfriend to his own pride and joy; Jean has to admit that the older man’s enthusiasm about his child makes him all the more appealing (however the _hell_ that works, because Jean can’t vouch for anything at this point—especially since neither of them could ever get pregnant, thus removing the need to find motherly/fatherly qualities in each other—just because he has fallen for a man doesn’t mean he understands shit about gay relationships).

With a quick, almost giddy laugh, Marco takes off running suddenly—down the hall, narrowly dodging a table and _rolling over the top of the couch what-the-actual-hell-his-boyfriend-is-a-superhuman-after-all_ —and, as he rolls awkwardly off the back of the sofa, he appears to catch sight of a figure eyeing him from the next hallway in the little one-story; upon this glimpse, Marco grins even wider, puts his hands out, and breaks out in a run down the second hall. A little yell echoes back to Jean, causing him to dubiously lift an eyebrow.  The sounds of shuffling and shifting and snickering slip down the corridor, muffled but obviously amusing for both parties (though Jean can only imagine what on earth they’re doing back there).

“Jean!” Marco’s voice reaches him suddenly, in a manner which Jean can only assume means “come hither”. Running his tongue along his swiftly-drying lip, he picks up a few bags in his fingers and maneuvers his way down the first hall, past the first sofa—at this point, he pauses in his saunter and runs an inquiring hand along the top of the couch (seriously, though, has this been slicked with grease, or is Marco simply that talented?—and this nagging curiosity of his is in no way related to an accident from his preteen years, so stop asking—get that snooping look out of those eyes). With a quick clearing of the throat, he shakes himself from this strange mini-obsession and continues on, rounding the corner and proceeding down the second corridor, eyeing the wide-agape door at the end and feeling his breath catch. These next few minutes have the potential to affect him in ways he would once have considered impossible; not only is he being warmly invited into the _bedroom_ of his romantic partner, but he is also meeting the child of said partner. As a man generally known for royally screwing things up, he is perfectly aware that these looming minutes are crucial not only to his own self-worth, but to Marco’s happiness. He mustn’t allow himself to fall victim to his typical stroke of bad luck—not now, not when so much of his future with Marco rides on this first impression.

Giving a little sniff, he tightens his grip on the bags and continues walking, approaching the door and, with a quick kick, stepping inside.

The first thing his eyes settle on is the little figure sniggering at Marco’s side.

Swallowing, Jean sets the bags down and clears his throat; his hazel eyes—uncertain, anxious, wide and wild—never flit away the child, as though the younger human is a threat to his very existence. Nico’s giggles seem to pass upon the feeling of lingering eyes, and his expression is quick to convert to one of apprehension, almost akin to that of Jean, as he turns to cautiously eye the tall stranger with a face full of doubt. Jean’s gaze darts along Nico’s face, mapping out the little similarities between the child and his father; the resemblance is almost uncanny, to the point where Jean would drop a joke about it, were he not presently resisting every fight-or-flight instinct jolting like electricity through his nerves. The boy’s cheeks are flushed a vivid crimson and spackled with the same familiar freckles as Marco, proving their blood relation to anyone with an inkling of doubt. His skin is paler than his father’s, and his eyes hold a clearer, gunmetal hue—almost a blue-hazel—a unique, intriguing color. The mess of hair on his head is a little longer than Marco’s, and sticks up in a few places—a bit of a contrast to his sire’s, whose hair is somehow always perfectly combed, even after sleeping (yet another trait of Marco’s that Jean believes to be superhuman in some way or another). If Jean had to guess, he would assume that Nico is probably around the ripe age of four, maybe five (if he’s five years old, then he’s a wee bit short). Upon his body lies a pair of simple shorts and a child’s graphic tee (with an artistic rendition of Lucario on it, which Jean can appreciate), though the shirt is a size or so too large for him at this point in his growth.

In short, this little rascal is, admittedly, pretty freaking adorable.

One of Marco’s hands sets itself atop Nico’s shoulder as he plops down on the bed, grinning across the room at the dumbstruck man who stands so awkwardly in the doorway; figures, Jean thinks internally, that Marco is the only person in this room who seems remotely happy about this first meeting between strangers. “Jean, this is Nicolas Bodt. Nico, this is my friend, Jean. You know, the one I told you would be staying here with us for a while?”

Nico gives a tiny nod, though does not leave Marco’s side; his fist clamps tighter against the older man’s pant leg. “Why is his hair two colors?”

The sudden question breaks a bit of the awkwardness floating between the two, but prompts a small snort from Jean.

(The first thing the child asks about is his hair? Is it _really_ that strange? Marco seems to like it—at least, he likes running his fingers through it, and likes the contrast between the top and sides—Marco only admitted that to him one evening when he came back from a work party drunk as could be, but that’s beside the point. His hair is not weird. It’s downright dashing and nobody can convince him otherwise).

The child’s response does not catch Marco off-guard, however; if anything, the (freckled, fiendish) man finds it endearing, and merely smiles wider. “He just likes his hair like that.”

That treacherous, fickle bastard… Jean shoots him a look of incredulity, of betrayal, as he folds his arms across his chest. “You’re kidding, right? I always thought you liked my hair.” Jean’s lower lip slides back and beneath his teeth as he bites back a not-so-G-rated retort (hmph, Marco sure seemed to like his hair _perfectly fine_ the other night when they were getting it on—he’ll have to comment on this little detail later on). At the moment, however, Jean resists the temptation, mostly out of the borderline-crazed, pleading look on Marco’s crookedly-grinning face—the older man knows exactly what he’s thinking, and while Jean has never entirely pissed off Marco (somehow), he daren’t make such an attempt, especially in the presence of an innocent little boy. Something tells him that Marco would be hella frightening in a state of pure rage.

Nico finally relinquishes his hold on Marco’s pant leg, though dares not move any nearer the intruder; instead, he opts for maneuvering around his father’s bed and circling poor Jean, as if trying to figure out in his little mind how on earth he can get past the strange guy blocking the doorway with his two-toned hair and his lanky figure. His short legs creep forward, slink backward, side-step, and repeat, all the fixating his gaze upon Jean’s body—he does not chance a fleeting glance at the other’s face, however, as though the mere sight could set his body aflame.

“… Kid, what the he—” Jean catches himself in this moment and is thankfully quick to correct his liberal tongue— “—eeck are you doing, anyway?”

The sudden sound of the other’s voice appears to jolt Nico from some pensive state, and he seizes this moment as an opportunity for escape; in a single, breakneck motion, he sprints forward, slipping past Jean’s leg and steering his way down the hall and out of sight.

“You know, Marco…” Blinking once, twice, Jean directs his attention down the hall, halfway expecting the large pair of blue-hazel eyes to peer curiously from around the corner, as if checking that Marco has not been injured by this strange man in the doorway; instead, he receives no such sight, and not another utterance echoes from the living room. Well, Nico is certainly an odd boy, this he cannot deny—adorable, yes, and presumably very intelligent—but far from ready to accept a second man living under the same roof (let alone sleeping in the same bed as his father).

The older man glances across the room at his companion and allows a wispy little sigh to flutter from his mouth. “Yeah, I was afraid he wouldn’t react very well to you at first… But I think he’ll warm up in no time. He just…”

“Hates my guts?”

“… I wasn’t going to say that.” At the same time, however, he seems to mull this idea over in his head a few times before responding once more. “Don’t be so glum about it though. He’ll come around to you. It’s just going to take some time, that’s all.”

To this, Jean finds himself unable to articulate, though his eyes gradually begin to drift back toward the end of the hall, where Nico had turned the corner and vanished. It’s probably in his best interest to strike up casual conversation with the boy at some point in his indefinite stay here—in fact, he daresay he should make it a mission, of sorts, to learn exactly what Nico is interested in and try to work from there (assuming his somewhat lacking social skills aren’t sufficient enough—not that he’s a complete failure in making conversation, but—oh, screw it all, he never interacts with children [though he would, admittedly, classify most of his coworkers as such under certain circumstances—err, under most circumstances] [mostly just Eren][and maybe Connie][and _definitely_ Connie][though Jean’s not so far from that point either, he supposes][these thoughts are growing more and more irrelevant, aren’t they?][He really wants those Cheez-its right about now]).

A mission in the making. Right.

The name’s Kirschstein. Jean Kirschstein. Agent-Double-O’-Shit-I’m-in-Over-My-Head.

(He can’t help but wonder if that would make Marco the Sylvia Trench or Jaws of this pseudo-spy-operation. Both seem pretty plausible at this point, after this mess).

“Guess so. I, uh… I’m gonna go get the rest of my stuff.”

Acknowledging Marco’s nod, Jean turns away and shuffles down the hall and out into the living room, eyeing the luggage sitting in an assemblage by the front door; from his peripherals, he spots an ephemeral movement, and with a subtle look from the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Nico sitting on the carpet by the fireplace. The boy’s fingers dig absently into the rug, drawing little designs and leaving creases with every flick of the wrist; Jean cannot quite decipher his drawings, but judging by the concentrated crease in Nico’s brows, he assumes that the kid is making an attempt to craft something from memory. Even Jean is unable to resist the tiny grin that tugs in a nagging fashion at the corners of his lips, and as he leans down to pick up his suitcase, he finds himself walking leisurely in the direction of Nico Bodt.

With another nervous, quick lick of the lips (Jean really needs to invest in some quality chapsti— _what the hell_ ), he fidgets in place for a minute, eyeing the oblivious child’s carpet-doodles a bit closer to get an idea of what he might be struggling to recreate. Nico appears to notice the shadow sloping over his shoulder (though Jean is careful this time to keep a bit of a distance), and shuffles backwards a bit, eyes meeting Jean’s at last and _not blinking_. It’s as if the young man has discovered Nico with his hands stuffed down a cookie jar; the boy’s chest heaves with every disconcerted breath—his eyes, wide as fine china saucers, do not so much as budge, do not blink, but stare up at the stranger’s (horse)face with a frightful anxiety. Jean’s not sure if he’s simply shy, or if it’s all Marco’s fault for not preparing him for this two-toned weirdo suddenly encroaching on their property and living like a natural member of the family.

(Marco will be given a swift talking to this evening. Everything boils down to Marco, in the end. Jean’s not so certain that the familiar freckled face is not a façade for some persona of pure deception).

Despite his blatant hesitation, however, Nico gathers up enough courage in his heart to mutter a brief “… hi…” before directing his attention to his lap, wherein his hands rest, picking nervously at a bit of loose skin beside his fingernail.

“Hey.”

Well.

This is awkward as he—awkward as heck.

Fudge his silly life.

“Uh… Whatcha drawing?” Kneeling down to the child’s level, Jean points at the patterns that have been dug into the rug, lightly running a finger along one of the lines (though he does take caution to avoid messing it up—hey, what child _hasn’t_ made shapes and lines in a squishy carpet with their fingers? Even Jean knows better than to rub his hand all over it—give him more credit than that, now). “Looks kinda like a moose to me.”

“It’s a cat-a-pillar.”

“Oh.”

Oh.

This conversation is going _splendidly_.

Giving a low groan through clenched teeth, Jean nods and rises up to stand on his feet once more. “Cool, cool… Um…” What else is there to say to someone who’s, like, four years old? Sure, Jean can speak _plenty_ reasonably with people ten and older—in fact, he might even claim that he excels in that field—it might be a false claim, but a claim he would make nonetheless. Yet, for whatever reason, the pure, frivolous mind of a child is one of impenetrability? Should it truly be this difficult? Is he so far gone from his own childhood that he can’t manage a cheery conversation with a boy at a man’s most creative—most _intelligent_ age? “… I bet your dad tells you that you’ll mess up the carpet doing that, right? Mine always used to…”

A look of resentment suddenly flashes in the child’s eyes, setting the chestnut that lines his crow’s pupil ablaze—his fingers knead the carpet beside his bottom, digging holes anxiously as he peers up at Jean with a ferocity that surprises even the young man. “Don’t tell him! You can’t get me in trouble!” His eyes remain wide and alight, but little beads of saltwater begin to accumulate in the corners of his eyes. “Y-You can’t…”

“Calm down, kid, I’m not gonna tell on you!” Jean shakes his head and holds his arms out in front of him in defense. What’s this boy’s problem, anyway? It’s obvious that he holds no fondness for his father’s boyfriend (whatsoever), but there’s far more about Nico that Jean vows to discover in these next few weeks (assuming he survives, of course. There’s still the off chance that Marco is a serial killer who goes to great lengths to win over his lovers, only to lock them in an iron maiden for some sick experimental purpose [or perhaps as a crude collection—here, come admire the limited edition college boy, complete with puncture wounds and a birthmark shaped like a moth on his hip]). “Are you seriously that afraid of getting in trouble?” At Nico’s silent response, Jean lifts a skeptical eyebrow and lowers his voice a little. “… He doesn’t hurt you, does he?”

Upon such an outlandish question, Nico shakes his head vigorously, pouting deeper and tugging absentmindedly at the carpet once more. “No! Daddy doesn’t do that…”

“Well, then what’s up? Does it have something to do with me?”

Jean receives the only answer he requires in Nico’s actions. The child flinches—his eyes avert promptly to the floor, where he instead examines the holes his fingers have dug into the rug; he rubs at them with his hands and eliminates any trace of his doodles from the shag. “Mmmm…” He utters a little whine, wiping vigorously at the salty soldiers that threaten to spill in little rivulets down his cheeks.

Now, Jean Kirschstein has never been a sap. As a child, any sort of advancement out of turn would have landed him a quick spanking and a trip to his room—he turned out alright, but these memories aren’t his fondest by any means—but Jean is not the same man his mother was (same woman? Same man? There really isn’t a good way to put that, is there?), and neither is it his place to behave as a parental figure to Marco’s son. Despite being a new member of the household, he is far from Nico’s secondary parental figure, and to attempt to become such would be nothing short of suicide (and would probably worsen his relations with both Nico and Marco).

Besides, Nico seems traumatized enough by the idea of sharing a house with this two-toned stranger.

“Hey, kid…” Clearing his throat, Jean lowers himself to one knee again, reaching a single hand outward towards the boy’s head; long fingers faintly brush across the tips of his messy black locks—such contact ushers Nico backwards, shying away from Jean’s touch with a discomforted sniffle. “Calm down, already, would you? I’m just trying to dry your face off; I’m not gonna eat you or anything.”

But neither party makes any further attempts at conversation.

~w~w~w~

“Alright, Marco, fess up.”

“Huh…?” Marco’s freckled face pokes up above the top of his novel and his attention shifts to the other man across the room, who stands barely visible in the dim night. “What are you talking about now?”

“I’m talking about you.” Rolling his hazel eyes in mock exasperation, Jean shuts the bedroom door behind him, peering across at his boyfriend in the hazy light of the lamp flickering on the nightstand. “It’s time you started explaining stuff.”

“What sort of stuff do you want to know?”

The pure _smile_ that laces Marco’s _fucking annoying_ voice drives Jean to the breaking point. He gives a short, doglike growl in the back of his throat and approaches a suitcase lying slanted against the wall by Marco’s dresser; his fingers work to unzip the front pouch and withdraw a pair of plaid pajama pants, which he sets on the floor as he begins to strip down for bed. “Well, for starters…” His voice catches once behind gnashing teeth as he teeters; his foot entangles itself in the leg of his trousers as he undresses, causing him to hop awkwardly toward the edge of the bed and use it as leverage to avoid stumbling to the ground (because only the most incapable of idiots stagger while changing clothes—Jean is clearly above such petty mistakes—unlike Eren Jaeger, who probably struggles from such a severe case of Dress Incapability Disease that he must have specially-designed pants that button down on either side. There is no other reason for such pants to exist than for the most tragically incapable humans on this earth. They are the instant gelatin of humankind—more convenient, but infinitely more disgusting. Jean really ought to get food off of his mind for a while). “How did I _not_ know that you had a son?”

Marco’s eye remains engrossed in Jean’s antics, traveling admirably along his lithe body as the younger man struggles to remove his (annoyingly large) foot from the midway point of his trousers; at last, Jean manages to tug it out and, as a symbol of victory, chucks his pants across the room and into the corner. Chancing a small, mischievous smile, Marco sets his book down for a moment, placing it in his lap face-down to keep his page. “It’s not my fault, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

“I can see you checking me out over there, you know…” With a short grunt, Jean snatches up his flannel pants and slips them on with significant ease compared to undressing. “And how is this not your fault? You’re the one with a kid, not me. How was I supposed to know?”

“Don’t you remember—about a month ago?” As Jean slides into the sheets beside him, Marco scoots nearer his companion and takes comfort in the warm body at his hip—this is one of the many luxuries of living with his lover that will undoubtedly prove positive in the long run. “I cancelled our date because I had to stay home with Nico. I called you and said so. At least, I’m pretty sure I did…” He swallows and lets a nervous chuckle slip past his lips. “But you obviously didn’t know, somehow.”

“No, Marco, I was _totally_ aware of it.”

Despite the meaning behind Jean’s words, Marco allows his hand to lift; fingers slip between short, choppy strands of sandy brown hair as he attempts to redirect his attention. “Hmmm, you’re never sarcastic…”

“And you’re never this much of a pain in the ass.” Jean’s voice levels, albeit deadpan, and his eyes lift slowly in response to Marco’s advances—his subconscious responds well to the familiar touch, however, and his eyelids droop a bit in relaxation as a contented shudder raises goose bumps along his arms. “Is that supposed to be foreplay?”

“No. We can’t, remember?”

“Stop.”

“Sorry, but I won’t.”

“… You’re going to make my hair greasy.”

“Probably, yep.”

To this, Jean harbors no response, but instead leans hesitantly into the touch, shifting his weight to support his head on Marco’s ribcage as the left hand travels to absently run its thumb along his neck. “… I haven’t forgotten about everything, you know. I still have a lot to ask you. And you’re going to answer me. _Fuck_ , I’m tired, stop doing that…” His eyelids shut blissfully for a moment, struggling to shake the sleep from his eyes. The two remain as such for a period of silence, neither entirely sure where to begin with so many topics hanging like a fog in the air amidst their bodies. Jean’s eyes budge open gradually, staring tiredly at Marco’s bare, freckled side as it presses awkwardly against his nose—in reality, this isn’t the most comfortable position for either party, but neither chances any further movement out of fear of crumbling the temporary stalemate between their conflicting moods. His glossy gaze trails a crooked path of freckles up Marco’s torso—along his chest, across his shoulder, up the curvature of his neck, and to his cool coffee eyes, which presently veil themselves from Jean’s prying vision (one by a lid, one by a cloth patch—there are times where Jean wishes Marco didn’t feel obliged to cover his clouded eye). “Hey… Marco?”

“Nico’s mom was a girl named Mina.”

“… Hm?”

“Mina Carolina.” Marco clears his throat and sets his book on the bedside table; he allows his eye to open enough to observe the sheets beneath his free hand as he shifts to slide further beneath the covers. Jean mirrors the other man and lowers himself onto his back, watching as Marco flicks the light off and ensnares them in a blanket of darkness; his partner is visible only by the faint outline of pale blue cast through the window by the moon—the subconscious petting stops. “We started dating when I was about your age.”

“You say that like you’re so much older than me…”

Jean can feel the frown emanating from Marco’s normally cheery face.

“Sorry. Go on.”

A quiet sigh puffs out from Marco’s lips; Jean shivers as he feels the light chill of breath against his arm. “There’s not very much to say... We drank too much one night…” He swallows audibly—Jean’s frown deepens as he senses Marco’s body tremble beside him. “We both wanted to keep the child, and started living together. She was a really, really sweet girl—she had spunk.” A single chuckle, high-pitched and breathy, reverberates in the silent darkness. “… I think you would have gotten along well with her.”

Jean says nothing, makes no effort to budge from his spot on the mattress, but offers his views without much thought. “Uh, sorry Marc, but I don’t think I would even be in the picture if she still lived here. I mean, seriously.”

The silence that follows catches Jean off guard, and he clamps his lips tightly shut with a mild blush of embarrassment. Something he said was wrong—Marco is rarely silent about anything, let alone an attempted joke of his (if anything, Marco is the one being on this earth with high enough tolerance to endure his wise cracks). “Marco?”

“… Sorry.” A gentle, solemn laugh sounds from beside him, though Jean knows that the humor sprinkling his voice is feigned. “… Anyway… Mina went into labor a month early. I wasn’t… We were both so excited, but—at the same time, something wasn’t…” He swallows again and drifts into silence.

“… Marco?”

“She lost too much blood.”

“… Oh _god_!” And so it is that Jean realizes just how _utterly inappropriate_ his earlier comments have been. “Oh! Oh… God, Marco, I didn’t—”

“Don’t worry about it…” Despite his limited vision, Jean spots the shifting shape of his companion in the faint glow of moonlight as Marco rolls onto his side to face him. “It’s been four years since then. I don’t dwell on it, and you shouldn’t either.”

Nonetheless, a bitter welling spurts up within Jean’s stomach, churning his gut in a way that is nearly nauseating and entirely too awful for his tastes. There is far more to Marco than he ever gave the man credit for, and in this fleeting moment of small talk, he has come to realize so much (and yet, none of these odd sensations are specific enough for him to place his finger on—he is entirely unable to describe these sudden comprehensions, but all the while cannot help but feel as if Marco has allowed him into some deep, dark crevice of his life that was meant to be, more or less, kept private).

 A feather-faint touch to his shoulder gently rattles Jean from his world of muddled thought; a single, short-fingered hand rests comfortably upon the topmost portion of his forearm. “You’re dwelling on it, aren’t you?”

“… Kind of, yeah.”

A breathy sigh meets Jean’s ears as Marco’s face moves nearer his own. “Don’t, please? Jean, I’ve moved on—you’ve helped me get past all of this. I put my faith in _you_ , you know.”

“Yeah, you said that this morning…” With a single sniff, he folds his arms across his chest—his eyes struggle to make out Marco’s face beside his in the dark. “Why did you do that, anyway? Not gonna lie, I’m not the kind of person people usually trust with… well, anything important.” (which, Jean thinks with a sidelong glance, is mostly his own fault—he was once trusted with petsitting Armin’s parrot, back in high school; the outcome was not pretty, and neither Jean nor Armin were capable of eating any form of poultry for a few years thereafter—he’s not exactly the most trustworthy, humble person, which he accepts and mostly brushes off without a care). “Never buy a bird, by the way.”

“Wha…? Okay… Sure.” Marco shakes his head with a small, airy laugh; his bangs tickle Jean’s nose, which scrunches up and turns downward to avoid any more accidental scratches—the scent of leftover hair gel lingers in his notrils. “I’m not really sure how to say this… But I’ve always trusted you; even on that day we met. You’re honest—you’re also a natural leader. You have your faults, yeah, but so do I. I’m not sure if I can really put my case into words though…”He clears his throat and grins wider, scooting nearer still and pressing the tip of his nose to Jean’s neck; the action prompts a hot flush to spread across the younger man’s cheeks, and the tickling sensation ushers him to squirm a bit and bat Marco away. “Just don’t worry—it’s not like you to worry so much. We’ll work this out. Promise.”

“You’ve promised a lot,” Jean responds flatly, backing his body away from Marco’s touches. “Stop doing that; it’s freaking me out.” Ordinarily, he isn’t opposed to a little cuddle here and there, or perhaps an evening of making out, but his mood has been a bit sour all day; the last thing he has any interest in at the moment is getting touchy-feely with the source of all of his problems. Call him selfish if you will; he hardly cares at this point—and, to be frank, Marco has him wrapped around his finger as it is, so it won’t kill the older man to sleep on his side of the bed for one night.

Wrapped around his finger… Why, Jean might as well be a _ring_ , really. He simply can’t help it—damn Marco and his charismatic, wooing ways. But rest assured: if Jean were, in fact, a ring, he would be the most brilliant, shimmering ring—the purest, the one sought for most, the one Marco would spend a lifetime seeking, all the while chanting “my precious” in an eerie, shrill voice.

He would be the One Ring to Marco’s Gollum.

The mental image of a freckled Smeagol is enough to make Jean shudder and inch ever further towards the edge of the mattress.

“Just… try to get some sleep, Jean. Nico will warm up to you eventually, just like I did. You’ll see.”

Releasing a small sigh, Jean nods, eyes flitting to the moonlit window as Marco shifts back to his own end of the bed.

It isn’t as if Jean has no desire to become a parental figure to Nico; he reckons that the child is considerably more social under ordinary circumstances (rather, Jean finds it difficult to believe that any child related to Marco could be anything _but_ extroverted). Unfortunately for the both of them, however, these circumstances are far from ordinary. For one thing, how is Jean supposed to balance his school life, his job (his position in which is dangling by a thread as he speaks), and raising a family at home? Two of these objectives have been difficult enough to manage without the addition of caring for offspring (and fully cognizant offspring at that).

Come to think of it, what does Marco do on weekdays, with regards to his son? After all, the older man holds a job as an anchorman at a television station about forty minutes away—as far as Jean knows, Marco works a relatively normal shift every day. Does he employ a babysitter? There wasn’t anybody else home when they returned from Jean’s apartment this morning… Surely Marco doesn’t just leave Nico to fend for himself in this highly-unattractive house? The thought surprises Jean, and a fraction of his subconscious tells him that things simply cannot be this way; Marco always seemed like the type to fret over every little nuance of danger, almost like a doting mother—this is undoubtedly something that he will have to bring up at some point.

Then, secondly, there is the matter of Jean’s experience in the parenting field. Marco claims he’s a natural leader, which he won’t argue, but that does not necessarily mean that he believes it wholeheartedly either. How is somebody like Jean supposed to serve as a secondary role model for a four-year-old boy? His own parents were dysfunctional at best—they divorced when he was eight, and he rarely saw his father; his mother meant well, and he loves her to this day, but she isn’t the sweet, affectionate type by any means (yet another item on Jean’s list of reasons why his love for Marco Bodt makes no psychological sense). And if he’s going to intrude on Nico’s house and serve as another authoritative adult, he doesn’t want to be overly firm with punishment or anything (and to do so without being his official second parent seems unnecessary and uncalled for)—if anything, that would only make Nico despise him more.

Damn it all, this is making his head throb.

Fingers digging into the bed sheet beneath his body, Jean grips the blanket tighter in his clutches and curls up a bit as he struggles to fight back the urge to let out his frustrations; in all honesty, he wants nothing more in this moment than to go into a fit of childish rage, throw some things, yell a bit, and then calm himself after ten to fifteen minutes of explosive behavior—such is the typical routine for instances like these where his duty betrays his capabilities.

As if sensing the tenseness stemming from the other half of the bed, a few fingers gently nudge his shoulder once more. “You okay, Jean?”

Short seconds tick by in silence as Marco’s fingers drum lightly, rhythmically against Jean’s shoulder. His hesitance lingers, but Jean cannot help himself any more in this fatigued, confused state of mind—it’s best if he leaves the terrors of his mind for a night and relishes in the warm body lying beside his. At least nothing can reach him in the confines of sleep. Turning onto his other side, Jean scooches over and, with a small frown, curls up against Marco’s side, pressing his face into the other’s ribs once more and releasing a short sigh. “No. I feel like shit. And if you don’t like wearing that thing, then don’t.”

Lips parting widely in a long yawn, Jean curls in closer still and allows his eyelids to slip slowly shut, but not before reaching a lazy arm up to tug the eyepatch off of Marco’s skull and tossing it carelessly across the room—to be frank, it’s been driving him crazy.

~w~w~w~

It’s weird as hell to say aloud, but Jean has always found Marco’s sleeping face to be the cutest thing since sliced bread.

After a fitful night of wonky dreams and haphazard bouts of sleep, Jean has no quarrel with the universe in these few minutes of early-morning bliss as his eyelids flutter open to reveal the peaceful, slumbering face not far from his own; in the night, he had somehow managed to roll semi-perpendicular to the other man, and his body now drapes awkwardly across Marco’s arm and shoulder, but he hardly finds time to complain about the elbow jutting into his stomach. Thankfully, whatever minimal anger he retained from last night has, more or less, subsided, and he can concentrate on blinking the sleep from his eyes and relishing in the presence beside him.

Jean allows his gaze to dart languidly across Marco’s face, admiring the arbitrary little dots that speckle his cheeks, nose, and forehead, tracing constellations between each mark and subconsciously wondering what little planets possibly orbit said stars in the deepest crannies of his skin. He traces his partner’s jaw with tired eyes—square, prominent, yet entirely unclenched—at ease in serene existence within his own mind as he snoozes. Marco always looks so carefree, roused or resting… It’s enough to make him envious.

(And then there’s Jean Kirschstein, who flails around in his dreams and snores louder than a walrus roars—at least, according to said older companion—though he cannot help but wonder how true this holds. After all, how the hell should Marco know what a walrus sounds like? Therefore, Jean considers his argument invalid until proven accurate.)

“Mmm…” Marco’s form shifts beside him, and his tranquil face twitches a couple of times ever-so-slightly—almost as if he has to sneeze, Jean contemplates with a brief upturn of the lips—and curls up a little more on his side as he appears to fight off a dream of some sort. Although he rolls his eyes instinctively, Jean can’t help but smirk at Marco’s sleep discomfort; he really ought to do something to worsen that dream state (or make it downright bizarre—whichever may apply). But what? He could always scramble off of the bed and get a bowl of water—stick Marco’s hand in it or something. At the same time, though, that would risk Marco peeing himself in his sleep, and he would rather avoid that possibility both out of disgust and out of fear for his life (oh, however hilarious it might be, Marco would _kill_ him). If Nico wasn’t in the house, he could always stick a hand down Marco’s pants, but somehow he has an inkling that the freckled man wouldn’t appreciate that too much either.

Hmmm.

Well, if nothing else, he could always tickle him or something.

But that’s kind of lame.

“Mmm?” Unfortunately (for Jean), Marco begins to shift further beside him, and it isn’t long before a pair of brown irises—one a vivid chestnut and the other a hazy, sweet chocolate—meet his eyes face-to-face. “Morning, Jean.”

“Morning.” Marco’s mouth gapes again in a yawn, and a hand lifts to cover his lips as the feeling passes; Jean gives an overly dramatic wince and scrunches up his nose. “Go brush your teeth; you’re breathing on me and it’s kind of nasty.”

“Can’t I wake up first…?” Nonetheless, despite their bickering ways, the two exchange small grins with one another—Marco’s wide and bubbly and Jean’s a sly, contented smirk—but it takes mere seconds before the freckled face beside him contorts suddenly. Marco’s lower lip slips under his front teeth, and his expressive eyes grow all the more animated with a stifled, mirthful laughter. “ _Ohhhh_ … Heh, uh… pff, Jean?”

One of Jean’s prominent eyebrows lifts up inquisitively. He has always appreciated Marco’s sense of humor, and the other man has always been sweet about laughing often at Jean’s lame-ass jokes, but something about his face is rubbing Jean the wrong way right now. “What’s so funny?”

“Um…” The Adam’s apple of Marco’s throat bobs a few times as he swallows down another fit of subdued laughter. “Just… You’ve got a little something on your face, that’s all… I’ll have to scold Nicolas later for that…” One of his hands rises from his side and reaches outward, rubbing a firm finger against the bridge of Jean’s nose. He chuckles again. “Ehhh… It’s permanent, too…”

“What…?” Jean mimics Marco and raises a hand to rub curiously at his nose; he feels no substance, no flaws, no injuries… Huh. Weird. With a half-shrug, Jean sits upright on the mattress, readjusting his t-shirt at the collar and uttering another sleepy yawn; his eyes glance lazily down at his fingers, rubbing them together to reassure himself that he didn’t get a handful of any strange substance; surely enough, his fingers are mostly the same texture, but—

Is that ink…?

Ink… on his nose?

His stare lingers a moment longer on his hand, but it doesn’t take more than a few seconds for Jean’s sluggish mind to comprehend what exactly Marco has been giggling at for the last two minutes. Hazel eyes widening far larger, he scrambles out of the covers and practically throws himself off of the mattress, landing on the floor on one knee; he winces at the bruise that will likely form there, but gives no further hesitation in hurtling himself into the master bathroom—he flips the light on with his inky hand and hangs onto the doorframe for leverage as he stops himself in time to observe his reflection in the mirror.

“ _Aaaah!_ ” A startled, frustrated yell erupts from his lungs (contrarily, this noise, Jean would wager, sounds _nothing_ like a walrus) as he double-takes at his own likeness. The entirety of his face has been scribbled upon by a black-ink marker, with nonsensical shapes and lines strewn about the scrawled mess, stretching from temple to temple and from hairline to chin. “That kid…! _Marco!_ ”

Upon hearing his name, Marco lets out a small sigh and climbs out of bed as well, approaching the bathroom and standing in the doorway with that _damned_ nervous smile upon that _stupid fucking_ face of his. “Well, look at it this way…” A hand sits itself suddenly upon Jean’s shoulder. “At least we know Nico’s gotten over his fear of you.”

At the glare shot in his direction, Marco seems to get the hint and steps around him to start the water running for a shower; Jean pays his boyfriend no further heed. Why should he? His focus must, from henceforth, be on Nicolas Bodt—either on the chore of getting familiar with him or the process of proving to him that Jean downright refuses to be a part of these childish mind-games. He doesn’t care if Nico is only four—he doesn’t care if Marco gets upset—this is between the child and himself, as was made blatant by these abstract-as-hell designs scribbled all over his face. This is the beginning of an entirely new chapter in their day-old relationship. This means _war_.

And so arises the ever-present rivalry between Jean Kirschstein and a four-year-old boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect more appearances from other characters in the next chaper. :)


	3. Chapter 3

“He did _what?_ You’re kidding! Ah _aaaah,_ that’s great…!”

It is in times like these that Jean seriously questions his friendship (if one can even call it that) with Connie Springer.

“I swear to god, Connie, if you don’t _shut up_ …” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Jean wills away another migraine as he counts off a pile of change left as tip on one of the white-clothed tables. Only four bucks? Cheapskates.

“Wait, wait… Ehah…” Standing upright, he peers up at Jean’s glaring eyes, which glow a threatening, animalistic amber in the dim light of the restaurant—not that this deters Connie even minimally, for the ever-stretching smirk on his lips does not falter. “Tell me again—what did he do?”

“You heard me.” Nevertheless, Jean rolls his eyes and begins the trek back to the kitchen. “He just kind of… scribbled? But all over my face. With a Sharpie.”

Two weeks have passed since the day in question, but little has changed in the complex relationship between Jean Kirschstein and the offspring of his partner. Neither Nico nor Jean has made many attempts to come to terms with one another, though the boy has, at least, made no further efforts to draw on Jean’s face (although he can appreciate the child’s artistic ability [for his age, he is a rather impressive doodler] he cannot wake up every morning and scrub his face to a raw red). “It took almost half an hour to wash it off in the shower—and then I used some off-brand soap bar of Marco’s, because he’s a cheap asshole who can’t buy anything decent for full-price, and my face reacted to it.”

(Oh, yes, _that_ had been quite an experience, Jean muses with a snort. Nothing like stepping out of the shower and drying off his face to reveal an array of _bright_ scarlet splotches adorning his face like the scales of a koi fish—he has also had recurring breakouts on his forehead since that scrub. Stupid Marco and his stupid soap).

“I just don’t get what’s up with that kid.” Nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders, Jean glances back at Connie, only to find his coworker busy chatting away with Sasha Braus over by the sink across the room.

… Seriously, why _is_ he friends (friends?) with Connie? Is his ability to make lasting friendships _really_ that poor? Why, the only reason his relationship with Connie has lasted over the years is because neither of them really ever bother with anyone else—Connie was paired with Jean for a project back in the seventh grade, and they just… sort of _stuck_ since then. They drive each other crazy, sure, but is that not how all friendships are, in the end? Connie has Sasha, too, and now Jean has Marco, though he can’t help but feel as if these two relationships are completely different from each other.

Jean’s eyes linger on Sasha and Connie for a moment as his thumb fingers the wad of money in his hand. Connie’s relationship with Sasha is hard to pinpoint—Jean suspects that neither party has considered anything beyond pure friendship, but he could see them both hooking up in the end—maybe in the next ten years or so, when Sasha moves out of her parents’ house and Connie stops being such a crass dork (or when he grows a few inches taller—though this is looking more and more unlikely with age; Jean _almost_ pities him [ _almost_ ; but it’s _Connie_ , so his pity is only capable of running so deep]). On the other hand, the more he considers his relationship with Marco, the more apparent the oddity of his relationship with the older man seems. Apart from their conflicting personalities, Marco _is_ five years older than Jean, which ultimately makes him more learned—wiser about the world, about life… the man lost the mother of his child, for Pete's sake. And yet, in spite of all of this, Marco is perhaps the most optimistic, kind-hearted person Jean has ever met (to the point where it’s almost creepy—Jean still has his doubts on occasion, and waits for the day that Marco goes all Anakin Skywalker on him and tries to choke him to death for something trivial—not that Jean is willing to accept the existence of the new trilogy, but no matter—Marco’s just a shifty person, that’s all).

A part of Jean cannot help but envy the relationship that exists between Connie and Sasha; there is a certain facet to their friendship—an immaturity, perhaps—that Jean almost wishes could exist between Marco and himself. The combination of Marco’s experience and fatherly duty has affected the freckled man undoubtedly, and while he is still an incredibly refreshing, fun person to be around, evidence of their age difference remains. He loves Marco, and Marco loves him—it’s a simple concept, one that they have both accepted as true—but Jean is unable to shake the feeling that he’s growing up too fast. He’s not ready to undergo his last year in college—his last year of freedom before job-searching and becoming another number in the mass. He’s plenty willing to accept it—that’s just the way things are, and he refuses to kid himself otherwise—but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to accept the responsibility of fatherhood (or would it be motherhood? How does that even work?), the responsibility of being the main moneymaker in the household (because let’s face it—Marco is a camera operator and anchorman at a local news station, he surely can’t make _that_ much)…

… And then there’s the question of ‘why the _hell_ is he having a crisis _now_ ’, but that can be determined at a future date, when he’s actually in his right mind.

This is nothing he can’t handle—sooner or later, he’ll figure out what to do about his strange situation.

… But he would really rather it was sooner than later.

Like, that would be infinitely better than waiting around like a starving hyena for his next meal to drop dead beside him.

That… really didn’t make much sense, did it?

Shit.

“Connie!” Stepping suddenly forward, Jean approaches his shrimp of a friend and gives an acknowledging nod to Sasha; with a quick, indifferent “hey, Sash”, Jean lifts an arm and snatches Connie up by the back of the shirt collar.

Needless to say, Connie doesn’t take kindly to being manhandled so abruptly, and promptly begins to writhe and squirm in Jean’s firm grip. “Hey! Jean, what the hell, man? Put me down!”

“Listen up, baldy.” Setting Connie down on his feet, Jean dusts his hands off on the hip area of his apron and reluctantly meets the other’s glower as he struggles to put thought into coherent word. Finally, after a moment or two of lingering, hefty silence, Jean’s lips part to speak; he struggles to keep his voice as strident as possible. “I need help, and I need it now.”

“Glad you finally agree.”

“… Huh?”

“You need _serious_ help.”

If he weren’t on the verge of being fired already, he would have punched Connie’s lights out, just now. (His nearest higher-up, Levi, couldn’t care less about the affairs of his staff, but he simply would _not_ stand for a scrap that left blood anywhere within a centimeter of the kitchen. Maybe Jean can take him out behind the building later and wring his neck—with his own apron, no less. That would put Springer to shame. It would. Definitely).

“Connie, why do you exist?” Shaking his head with a frustrated sigh, Jean stuffs his hands into the pockets of his apron, distractedly eyeing a stack of plates beside the sink next to Connie. “Anyway, I need you to tell me where I can get some good advice on something.”

At this somewhat unorthodox request, Connie’s face contorts into a dubious expression and his arms fold across his chest. “Hold up. Let me get this straight—are you saying that you don’t need _my_ advice, but you want me to direct you to someone who has advice?”

“… Yeah.” Okay, in hindsight, Jean’s initial intentions were kind of stupid. Kind of _really_ stupid. Stupid like Eren Jaeger—and, let’s be honest here, that’s _awfully_ stupid. “What does it matter to you? The last time I asked you for advice you sent me to Ymir anyway.”

“That’s because she was relevant—”

“How the _hell_ is Ymir relevant to my sex life, Connie?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t really want to know!” A noticeable shiver ripples along Connie’s skin. “I mean, you’re both gay, so I figured she would know how—”

“If you finish that sentence, I’m picking you up again and locking you in the freezer.”

“Well, it’s true!”

“She’s a _lesbian!”_ A faint heat rises in Jean’s cheeks at the humiliating nature of the memory—that was around the second month’s anniversary of his strange relationship with Marco, and things were hella awkward from then after as far as their private lives were concerned (at least for another subsequent few weeks, since Jean had to wear a constant reminder of the incident on his face in the form of a bandage). “And I’m not gay…”

“Bi, pan, whatever. You know what I mean.” He shrugs his thin shoulders and makes an indiscernible face (but whatever it means, Jean sure as hell wants nothing more than to punch it off of his thick skull). “The point is, she still gave you advice. You got laid, didn’t you?”

“And I fucking _broke my nose_.”

The look on Connie’s face does not as much as twitch at this snappy reminder. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that…” A sly smirk suddenly spreads across his lips. “What kind of advice did she _give_ you, anyway?”

“Nothing that will ever be relevant to _your_ life.” Giving a groan, Jean runs a hand anxiously through his hair, nibbling the inside of his cheek as he resists the urge to put Connie in the freezer regardless—he might have to, just for the hell of it, especially after having this conversation. “Look, just give me advice on getting advice.”

“You still haven’t told me why you need advice.”

This is getting nowhere, and it’s driving Jean absolutely insane. Placing his head in his hands, Jean utters a low groan of frustration, mussing up his own hair in an attempt to organize his own thoughts. What is he supposed to do? Nobody around here has any experience in the field of parenting, let alone has ever found themselves in a situation akin to his—honestly, how many people can claim to have discovered their bisexuality (or Marcosexuality, he really isn’t entirely sure yet), moved in with their lover, and had a child thrown at them?

(He doubts many people have broken their nose and lost their virginity in the same night too, but that’s not as important in the grand scheme of things).

In the end, he hasn’t the slightest idea what the best plan of action is from here on out. Connie is useless to him, talking to Sasha would probably be just as ineffective (and he really doesn’t know her all that well anyway), talking to Eren is impossible because Jean does not speak Eren’s native tongue (the lost language of Bastardese), asking Levi for advice is like asking a honey badger to maul his face off (and Levi generally doesn’t give a shit anyway)… He has other coworkers, sure, but none that are much closer than Connie…

Well…

“Hey, Connie?”

“Yeah?”

“Did Eren come in tonight? “

“What, for work?” Connie nods his head for a moment, thinking about the question a bit deeper. “I saw him here earlier, but I’m pretty sure he left already.”

Damn Jaeger. It only figures, though—the _one_ time that he actually needs Eren to exist on this godforsaken planet is the time that said douchebag is AWOL. “Frig… You don’t have Armin’s number, do you?”

“Armin?” One of Connie’s stringy, thin eyebrows lifts above its respective eye; his attention drifts to the counter, where an assortment of drinks sit waiting, and his legs begin to move him toward the window—Jean follows wordlessly with an expectant look on his face. “Why do you want Armin’s number?”

“Because I need to talk to a guy like him, and he’s sentimental enough.” In all honesty, Jean appreciates Armin for what he has—the intelligence (and, at times, borderline insanity) of Moriarty, coupled with the attractive likeness of a scrawnier Prince Adam. Armin is, at the end of the day, a friend of sorts—the sort that isn’t a best friend, but is almost more open and personal because of this; Jean is free to tell him almost anything without fretting about Armin’s opinions. Besides, Armin is generally a kind-hearted person (unless drunk, a fact that Jean found out the hard way [and at the Bingo Parlor, of all places—he’s surprised a number of the elderly present didn’t go into cardiac arrest by the end of the night, with the obscene things that were spewing from Armin’s mouth], but with any luck they wouldn’t need a drink by the end of the night anyway). “And he used to babysit for Marco.”

“Oh, this is about the kid again?” Connie cups a hand over his mouth in a bored mock yawn. “You need to get Nicolas off of your mind for a while, man.”

“Just give me the phone number.”

Despite the look of resistance on his face, Connie lets loose a tiny sigh and wrenches his phone out of his pocket; Jean restlessly eyes his fingers as they tap through a few menus on the screen and access the Contacts section. “Ready?”

Nodding his head, Jean pulls out his smartphone and pulls up the keyboard. “Okay—Armin Arlert… What’s the number?”

“867-5309.”

“I swear on my grave that I _will_ wind up killing you one of these days. Just figured you should know.”

“555-1946.”

Although Connie practically spews forth numbers at the speed of light, Jean manages to copy down the number in his phone for use later this evening. “Now I’ll only kill you after I kill Jaeger. Thanks.” Sliding his phone back into his pocket, he gives a small smirk, satisfied with his work in the kitchen today; he can only hope that this stroke of luck carries over later, when he must return to Marco’s house—no, _his_ house, in all technicality—for who knows what might await him upon his return?

As if by fate’s fickle hand, his phone begins to pulsate in his pocket—“Catgroove” blares out from the speaker as his phone rings, prompting Connie to give a mocking little dance in the short span of time it takes for Jean to pull his phone back out and answer it. Shooting his shorter acquaintance a swift glare, Jean swipes his phone and holds it up to his ear. “Hey, Sexy.”

_“… What?”_

It takes every shred of effort in Jean’s body to resist an obnoxious spell of laughter—instead, he covers his mouth for a moment and snickers into the phone. “I’m joking—I made Connie gag, though. It was worth it.”

The voice on the other end is silent for a moment before replying with a flustered, _“… Right.”_ Marco clears his throat. _“Hey, what time does your shift end today? Do you think you’ll be back before six?”_

“Uh… Five, I think?” Jean scratches at his scalp, wincing as his fingernails nick a cut—he really ought to clip those soon. Peering around a few times, Jean sidesteps out of the kitchen and down the walkway toward the back door of the building. Once outside, he shuts the door behind him and presses the phone closer to his ear, straining to hear the words fluttering from the speaker as Marco’s signal pulses in and out—damn that old phone of his… “Why? What’s up?”

 _“Oh, nothing bad, don’t worry!”_ The tone of Marco’s voice reveals his apparent contentment, and the very thought makes Jean’s eyes roll and his lips upturn. _“I got called in—apparently Franz has bronchitis and couldn’t make it to work tonight.”_

A small sigh of relief escapes his lungs. “Oh, okay, if that’s all. God Marco, you freaked me out for a minute, there.” Leaning back against the brick wall of the restaurant, Jean exhales slowly, relishing in the calm serenity of the air around him compared to the chaos of the kitchen. “So, yeah, guess I’ll get back to the house around five-thirty or so. Does that work for you?”

_“I’ll be a little late, if that’s the case…”_

“Oh… Uh…” Is there anything he can do about this? He supposes he could talk to Levi about the situation (or maybe Erwin, depending on the mood Levi is in…), but he doubts that would be incredibly effective. “I can try talking to my boss about it, I guess. No guarantees.”

 _“You shouldn’t have to do that though… If it’ll only be fifteen minutes or so between our times, then I can probably leave Nico here on his own and leave earlier.”_ There’s a faint rustling on the other end, and Jean has to press the phone nearer still to make out the last bit of Marco’s sentence. _“—wants to talk.”_

“Huh? Sorry, what? I didn’t hear that—your phone crapped out on me.”

 _“Lovely, Jean.”_ The breathy, lighhearted quality of Marco’s teasing voice rings pleasantly in his ears, and earns him a chuckle from the younger man. _“I said that Nico wants to talk to you.”_

“… Right now?” One of Jean’s brows rises; his heart twinges in his chest and an uneasiness propagates through his gut. What would Nicolas want to talk about? He can’t imagine that it’s anything worthwhile (given that it’s coming from the mouth of a four-year-old boy, who probably spends his time talking about either profound existence or farting—perhaps even in the same conversation), and furthermore it cannot be very kind. It’s no secret that Nico has no interest in making friends with the boyfriend of his father (why, he doesn’t even know that Jean and Marco are dating at all—according to Marco, that would complicate things too much, and it would be better if Nico figured it out gradually on his own). Needless to say, the relationship between Jean Kirschstein and Nicolas Bodt is still as strained as ever, and said strain is, as such, taking a toll on the relationship between Marco and Jean in turn. He never really thought that parenting would be easy, but it would definitely help if the child actually had any interest in Jean’s mere existence. “Uh… Sure. Just put him on, I guess.”

A number of other shuffling sounds greet Jean’s ears before a faint _“hello?”_ sounds on the other end; the sound is enough to make Jean swallow, and he hopes dearly that it isn’t audible on the other end.

“… Hey, kid.” The corner of Jean’s lip twitches upward a few times—more in apprehension than in happiness, but it curves upward nonetheless; he feels the hairs on the back of his arm stand up and _ugh he’s not talking to Marco’s in-laws why is he so fucking jittery?_ (Come to think of it, Marco has never even mentioned his parents… Hm. He’ll have to ask about that on a later date). “What’s up?”

_“Um…”_

“… You still there?”

The two sit in silence for a brief while before Nico speaks once more. _“—never mind.”_

At this point, Jean swears that the boy is trying to frustrate him in the pettiest ways known to mankind, and perhaps he would have said more on the matter, had Marco not taken the phone to attempt one last communication with his lover.

_“Jean? You still there? Nico put the phone down and ran outside.”_

“For now.” A pause. “Wait, so—I’m babysitting tonight? For how long?”

 _“I’m not sure… Maybe until ten? I know that’s a long time, but I think you’ll do just fine.”_ A small sigh sounds from the other end. _“And it’s not babysitting, Jean. You’re watching the son of your partner—that’s not really_ babysitting _...”_

“That’s _definitely_ babysitting.”

The short silence that follows in suit strikes Jean with a wave of discomfort—nothing good can possibly come from such silence on Marco’s part, and Jean can practically feel the frown through the receiver on the cell phone. Marco speaks at last, though the smile has, without a doubt, fallen from his lips. “Jean, if things keep going well between us, you could wind up as his second legal guardian… You realize that, don’t you?”

Jean is perfectly aware of that possibility, yes. He knows that the next few months, assuming things go well between them, could lead to further developments in the relationship—the idea of marrying Marco both entices him and excites him to no end, and the fact that the latter thinks so too is enough to prompt a small heat to rise in his cheeks—but the idea of becoming Nico’s secondary caretaker under law is something new entirely. What would that make him to the boy—stepfather? He supposes that’s right, more or less, but he doesn’t necessarily enjoy the term. Furthermore, if Nicolas never accepts him as a member of the family (or as more than a doodle pad), then what is he supposed to do? He can’t just join the family against Nico’s will—he’s already regretting joining the _household_ without his consent, despite that the child is no more than four years of age. “… I know. Of course I know. That’s… I want that with you. I want that to be a possibility.” He swallows again, kneading his right elbow with his left hand as it holds the phone to his ear; he knows he’s babbling, and be it from the anxiety of the ensuing interaction with Nico or the frightening excitement that accompanies the thought of spending his life as Marco’s husband, something is driving him nearer insanity. “I’m not saying that I don’t want that.”

_“Just… You’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have to keep telling you that, you know…”_

“Yeah, I know, so stop… but thanks, I guess?”

_“I don’t want to keep you any longer—you’ve probably got work to do.”_

“About as much as usual. Which is pretty much none.”

_“I’ll see you later tonight, okay?”_

“Mhmm.”

_“Bye, Jean.”_

“See ya.”

He’s not going to last the night.

~w~w~w~

Unfortunately for both parties, five-thirty swings by all too quickly, and so it is that Jean Kirschstein and Nicolas Bodt find themselves alone in the same breathing space as one another without Marco to settle the qualm that exists in this awkward air.

Jean kicks the front door shut behind him as he enters the house; his eyes fall almost instantly upon Nico, who sits contently at the opposite end of the room, struggling to put on a pair of tennis shoes with the laces tied up. Admittedly, the combination of his determined face (complete with his tongue poking out from the corner of his lips) and his persistence (despite the fact that there is absolutely no way he can fit that on his foot without untying it) earns a small smile from Jean, though it is embarrassingly short-lived as the boy realizes that the tall idiot with the freaky hair has intruded upon his home once more. His little hands stop fiddling with the tongue of the left shoe—the top half of his foot is now hidden by the shoe as it dangles from his toes—and his eyes never leave Jean’s face.

Now, under normal circumstances (as if _anything_ about his life can even be considered “normal” at this point), Jean would be more than happy to simply leave Nico to his own devices. But if Marco expects him to “bond” with the boy—particularly enough to consider him an equivalent of a son or nephew or something—then he at least needs to make an effort. He refuses to let Marco down, after all that they’ve gone though. Like hell is he going to break up with the man because he can’t handle a little Sharpie to the face.

Or plush animals stuffed in his underwear drawer.

Or Legos shoved in the toes of his shoes.

God _damn_ , that hurt…

“Alright, kid, listen up.” Jean’s hands move to rest on his hips, though he decides this pose is far too feminine for his tastes and instead folds his arms nonchalantly across his chest (hey, he’s aiming for “Friendly Stepfather Jean”, not “Sassy Stepmother Jean”). “First things first...”

“I wanna go outside.” Kicking his feet up and down a few times, Nico’s hands return to the tongue of his shoe; he tugs relentlessly at the material in a vain effort to pull it up over his foot, and his face flushes with embarrassment beneath that familiar spackling of freckles that pattern his face. He continues to yank at it, as if pulling it up by the tongue is effective, and utters a little whining noise when he can’t manage this much. It takes every fiber in Jean’s body to resist chuckling at the pathetic sight, though he has a feeling that Nico wouldn’t appreciate that too much in the grand scheme of things.

“Stop—you’re gonna end up ripping the shoes or something, and I’ll get blamed for it, so… hands off.” Rolling his eyes lightly, Jean approaches the couch, eyeing Nico’s socked feet, from which the two character shoes hang loosely. “Spiderman?”

An offended look crosses over his face. “Spiderman’s cool…”

Jean’s hands lift in front of him defensively. “Hey, I never said he wasn’t.” Plopping down on the hardwood floor, Jean plucks the shoe from his right foot, leaning back against the couch and working at the knotted strings with his fingers. The sight surprises him—he would have thought Marco to be the sort of father who doesn’t forget about such things as ties when buying new tennis shoes; after all, most kids can’t handle the actual tying process until a certain age, and even so, Velcro is both simpler and flat-out badass. Hell, even _Jean_ would buy Velcro shoes if they made such things more readily available for adults. Maybe that’s why Marco was so willing to date him—maybe he has some strange affinity for string-shoes (because he honestly can’t see any other reason for Marco to have been so straightforward in their relationship—even if it was just a peck, Marco had kissed the side of his face that first night, after their sort-of-date at the restaurant. Marco had either been inexplicably infatuated at first sight or incredibly dense and unaware of social standards and when it’s acceptable to kiss another dude—Jean’s not quite sure which, but whatever the reason, it very well might come down to Jean’s footwear of choice).

“There.” Untying the strings, Jean reaches across to grab the other shoe and repeat the process; in a few seconds’ time, he hands both shoes to the antsy child and leans further against the couch, releasing a tired sigh. “Whatcha gonna do outside?”

Nico picks up the left shoe by the string and sets it in his lap, chancing a tiny grin at the ease with which he can open the shoe and stick his foot inside. “Soccer.” Slipping his right foot into the other shoe, Nicolas leaps up from the cushion and takes off in a cheery run toward the back door, bearing a large smile only a Bodt could have.

Well, at least Nico appears to be in a good mood today, which should, universe-depending, make things easier for Jean to handle.

Universe-depending.

(Which, ultimately, means his evening will probably still be as hellish as possible).

… Wait, did he just forget to tie the shoes…?

… Oh well. It’s probably best if he just lets the kid romp around for a while.

Making a face at the prospect, Jean slides himself upward and onto his feet, dusting off his bottom and readjusting the hem of his shirt—he really should get changed out of his work uniform…

But first thing's first, time to call up his short blonde drinking buddy.

Whipping his phone out of his pants pocket, Jean slides the screen and scrolls down through his contacts, eyeing the names near the topmost portion of the list—Armin’s is, thankfully, one of the first to appear, given his Double-A name (Jean cannot shake the feeling that there’s probably some lewd or bizarre joke that ought to accompany that title—double-a? Like, batteries? Hmm. He’ll think of it eventually). In this moment, however, such things are petty in the face of improving his relations with the child.

He lifts the phone to his ear and waits.

As the ringing drifts out from Armin’s end of the phone, his eyes flit toward the backmost window, noting the warm glow of the setting sun against the patio out back; Nico’s form darts past in the faint twilight, shadow trailing closely at foot as he approaches a soccer ball in the corner of the yard. That mien of delight lingers still from cheek to freckled cheek, and a boisterous laugh is fully prominent on his lips, despite the devilish intent hidden deep down in that little body. The kid is mischievous as all get-out, but even Jean cannot deny that he resembles his father in mirth, at the very least; it almost intrigues him—how Marco can so greatly resemble his son yet act nothing like the rascally tyke. It also makes him wonder, to an extent, if Marco was like this when he was a child, or if perhaps there is a far milder, sweeter side to Nicolas Bodt than he has given the boy credit for.

Only time will tell, he supposes.

Though he sort of wishes time would hurry the hell up.

“Hello?” Armin’s ever-familiar voice sounds from the other end of the call, prompting Jean to return his attention temporarily back to the blond Double-A (what _is_ that, anyway? It still plagues him).

“Hey, Armin. It’s Jean.”

“Jean… Valjean?”

“Wha--? No, not the bread guy!” He shakes his head with a small snort, though realizes soon thereafter that Armin cannot see such a display of mock exasperation, and thus stops the motion before he gives the world any other reason to call him a horseface (which is equally stupid, for the only presence in this room is Jean and perhaps a spider chillin’ in the corner of a cabinet somewhere—and to be frank, if the spider starts criticizing his existence, then he _knows_ there are some otherworldly shenanigans at play). “Y’know, Jean _Kirschstein_.”

A light chuckle resonates through the receiver of the cell phone. “I know, Jean. So, what is it?”

“Okay, so I’m gonna rant to you, and you are going to listen until I finish, and give me advice, because you’re a fucking genius with stuff like this. Got it?”

“Um…” A short pause passes between them while Armin apparently collects his thoughts (or something to that degree—not like Jean can read minds or anything; he isn’t superhuman, he isn’t Marco—and he doesn’t think that would work via phone anyway, so quit making assumptions, nonexistent fourth-wall sitcom audience). “Okay, sure.”

“Alright, so… I moved in with Marco a few weeks ago, and that’s been really freaking great and all, but I found out he has this kid, Nico, and so now I’m supposed to be a playmate or stepfather or something to him, and that’s bullshit, I don’t know what Marco was thinking, and I didn’t even find out Nico existed until five minutes before I moved in, and the kid puts Legos in my shoes, and _goddammit_ , what’s a Double-A?”

“… Is that i—”

“I’m not done, Armin. So like I was saying, Nico has been torturing me for the past two weeks—or three—you know, to hell with it, I don’t even know. I’m convinced he…” Realization strikes, and Jean’s voice fades briefly as his mind reaches the glorious state of epiphany at last. “Bra sizes!”

“I… What?”

“Bra sizes. Isn’t Double-A a bra size? It’s gotta be a bra size.”

“Jean, I don’t think—”

“No? You don’t think that’s it? I’ll have to ask Eren tomorrow—he oughta know. Heh.”

“Jean…”

“Anyway, where was I…? I don’t remember. But anyway, so I’m just kind of stuck now, you know? I can’t go to Marco for help—he’s already given up a lot for me, and I need to show him I can do this because _hell yeah_ I can do this. I’ve got this in the bag… I just need your help first.”

“Well… I think you should—”

“I don’t know what it is, Armin, but the kid just seems to hate my guts. Dunno why—not like I’ve been controlling or anything. I’m not some evil stepmother to his Cinderella or anything; this is, like, real life, and I’m not an evil old hag, and—hold up, I think I heard the door…”

Indeed, turning around on his heel, Jean lowers the phone for the quickest of seconds to peer across the room at the back door and catches a glimpse of Nico, who now stands in the doorway, movements sluggish and uncertain as he stares up at Jean’s face. Their eyes meet, brown hazel upon blue hazel, the former widening steadily upon the tear-laden state of the latter. Nico’s cheeks are flushed a furious red, streaked with rivulets of saltwater that branch off like little veins of sorrow. His eyes, wet and wide like the bluest bay, fixate themselves upon Jean’s gaze unwaveringly, to the point where Jean forces himself to look away for the briefest of moments to catch an awkward glimpse of the wood beneath their feet.

It is in this motion that Jean notices the source of Nico’s tearshed, as his stare lingers lower still and settles around the boy’s knees upon noticing a flash of red—surely enough, streaks of vivid scarlet run in stripes across either knee, pouring steadily from near identical scrapes in the skin. “You, uh… You hurt yourself?”

The boy makes no verbal response, save for a stifled whine as he suppresses another sob of pain, but moves to avert his eyes to his hands as well, which, as far as Jean can tell, have been pretty scraped up as well, probably from trying to break a fall or something.

Break a fall.

Oh.

_Ohhhhh._

Jean releases a small sigh, lifting the phone back up to his ear for a moment. “Armin, I’m gonna have to call you back, okay?”

“But I didn’t even say—”

“Bye, Double-A.”

“… Bye, Jean.”

Hanging up his smartphone, Jean tosses the device onto the couch beside him and glances over at Nicolas, who bears a disheartened frown and has yet to stop trembling out of anxiety over the sight of his own blood. “Hey, kid, do you know where your daddy keeps the first aid stuff? Is it in the hall bathroom?”

Nico manages a shaky nod, wiping at his drippy nose with the back of his hand. “Mhmm.”

Okay, so Jean isn’t entirely heartless. He’s not a wuss by any means, and he’s certainly nothing like Eren on terms of compassion, but the sight of his boyfriend’s child in such a state of pain and fright is enough to harden even Jean’s nonchalant, down-to-earth exterior—especially when it’s partially his own fault that such injuries have befallen the poor boy. Sighing once more, he nods his head a single time and begins the stroll to the bathroom, motioning for Nico to follow in suit with a quick jerk of the head. “What did you do, anyway?”

“I-I…” Another noisy sniff sounds from the bubbling boy as he follows Jean down the hall and into the bathroom. Jean flips the lightswitch and glances back at the child, studying the boy’s face for a moment before shrugging his shoulders; in a single, careful motion, he hooks his hands suddenly underneath Nico’s arms and hoists him up, setting the squirming, surprised child down on the countertop—this allows Jean easier access to the wounds for cleaning and relieves his back and knees from having to kneel down to look the boy in the eye. Nico makes another attempt to speak, though it comes out in a conglomeration of inarticulate words as he fights back another sob. “I sli-slided on the grass-ss, a-ah-and—and I-I hitda patio…”

“You just hit a new level of pathetic, you know?” Jean utters the words before he can stop himself, and the instant they fly from his lips, he bites back on the bottom of his lower lip with a wince. Even he knows that insulting the child is pretty much the worst thing he could do in a situation like this, and he admits that it is a downright stupid move on his part, but what’s done is, unfortunately, done.

The expression on the boy’s face contorts from one of sadness to one of resentment, anger flashing in those large dewy eyes as he scoots back further away from the edge of the countertop. “Sha’up! You’re—” He gives a little hiccup, wincing as his scraped up palms brush the counter subconsciously to steady himself—this triggers the tears in his eyes to fall freely once more, and another whine erupts from his heaving chest.

“Yeah, I know…” Faintly frowning at the anger in Nico’s voice, Jean pulls open the cabinet hanging on the wall above the sink and browses the shelves’ contents, skimming each level with anxious eyes in search of a first aid kit of some sort. Instead, he finds a washcloth and a couple of Band-Aids which, while not the most comfortable, will make do for the time being. Snatching up the cloth in his hand, he turns on the water and soaks it for a moment, eyeing the scrapes on Nico’s knees once more—those seem to be bleeding more, so it’s probably best if he tends to those first. He hasn’t had to dress wounds in years—apart from a cut or sunburn here or there, he really doesn’t injure himself all that often—he can only hope that he still remembers the basics (but really, who is he kidding? What kind of useless loser forgets how to disinfect a wound?). “Give me your leg.”

Although hesitant, Nico takes a chance and, casting a pained glare in Jean’s direction, lifts his foot for Jean to hold in one hand while the other being lightly wipes at the gash with the washcloth. The child’s mouth opens wide and he gives another whine of pain, though the tears have stopped cascading as he intently watches Jean clean the blood off of his leg. “Tha’ hurts…”

“Nothing I can do about that.” At this point, he has wiped most of the stray blood from the right knee, though the gash still seeps a bit too much to simply let it go. Screwing up his face in thought, Jean kneels down and opens the cabinets beneath the sink, glancing around for any sign of antibacterial cream or something similar. Well, fu—fudge it. Grabbing one of the large bandages from the box, he removes the paper wrapping and sticks it on top of the knee wound, pressing it down with his thumb and tossing the leftover paper in the wastebasket. “… I’m sorry.”

The apology earns little reaction from Nico, though Jean can’t say he expects much different. He’s not sure where the apology came from—whether it stems from his teasing earlier or for the boy’s pain at his fault or even for his inability to make Nico happy these past couple weeks. Whatever his case may be, Jean finds himself wiping the other knee clean and repeating the process, relieved at the manner in which the child’s breathy sobs have subdued at last. “You okay, kid? Holding up over there?”

Nico chances a swift nod of the head in acknowledgement, though makes no further motions than this—his eyes remain engrossed in Jean’s hands as they dress his scrapes, as if reassuring himself that this friend of his father’s is to be trusted in a moment of such vulnerability (that, or he just noticed the Bubbles watch on his wrist—Jean thinks that it’s probably a combination of both). “I hurted my hands, too…”

“I saw that. Like I said—you really scraped yourself up pretty good, huh?” Taking one of the boy’s hands in his own, Jean upturns the palm and scrubs at it with the washcloth, grunting lightly at the whine of pain that slips from Nico’s mouth. “Hey, come on, you can handle this.”

The frustration in the boy’s eyes returns in a flash, though with only half of the fervor that he held earlier as he watches the cleaning process. Continuing to the other palm, Jean wipes away the remainder of the blood smears; turning over each hand for a minute, he reassures himself that they are as clean as he can manage before running the washcloth beneath the water and tossing it into the corner of the room (hey, he can deal with that later [which, needless to say, means he will probably forget, and Marco will walk in to discover a bloody washcloth crumpled up in the corner of the bathroom one day, but that’s none of his concern at the time being]).

“There!” Stepping back, Jean admires his handiwork, though even he must admit that the combination of Band-Aids, cuts, and streaky tear trails does not add any inkling of happiness or satisfaction to the boy’s state of being—in short, nothing about Nico’s current condition reads “I’m A-okay”, and this worries Jean a bit, if only because he must now face the wrath of Marco Bodt, Freckled Father of Fury. Even if Marco is ordinarily a man of kindness and patience, he can only imagine how he would act upon discovering that his boyfriend was unable to keep a four-year-old child happy and safe for a few hours in his absence—why, he daresay it would be as if Walter Kovacs barged into his home, given the freckles.

Maybe his lover _is_ Rorschach. That would explain a lot of things.

“My hands still hurt…” The child sniffs once more—his left hand rubs away the tears that rim his eyelids with the back of his hand—as he scoots closer to the lip of the countertop, allowing his treated knees to dangle from the edge. Picking at one of the Band-Aids with his fingernail, he peers back over at Jean, meeting the other’s eyes with a small, barely-perceivable smile, though his face remains bright red from crying (and perhaps from a lingering shred of embarrassment at being assisted by his arch nemesis). “… Thanks.”

To say that Jean isn’t expecting a hint of gratitude from the little rascal is a great understatement. Did Nicolas Bodt, son of Marco Bodt and Mina Carolina, just _thank_ him? It seems almost too good to be true—maybe this is all a dream, some Inception shit or something… Eyes widening in disbelief, Jean chances a curt nod; the corners of his lips twitch upward in a half-smirk. “Uh… sure, Nico.”

For one reason or another, Nico’s face lights up suddenly, and that little smile he once bore now spreads into a wide, toothy grin; a giddy laugh erupts suddenly from his tiny frame, and his legs kick back and forth in a squirmy fashion. The sight would bring a smile to Jean’s face, if he wasn’t presently staring dumbfounded at this baffling child. What the _actual hell_ would prompt this one-eighty change in mood? The boy was crying and angry five seconds ago… Despite being told that he’s a childish person at times, he knows this argument is not credible, for he cannot understand a single thing that Nico does, or the reasoning behind pretty much anything he says or does. Kids are truly the most baffling creatures on this earth, he thinks, perhaps even more so than platypuses or aye-ayes (and many biology classes have left Jean wondering about the purpose behind both of those freaky animals).

“… What’re you so happy about?”

“You called me Nico!” Leaning back on his palms, Nico winces momentarily, having forgotten the scratches and nicks there, but soon adjusts his hands and continues to grin, allowing his eyes to wander in a strange display of nonchalance in the presence of Jean Kirschstein. “My name is Nicolas Bodt. My daddy’s name is Marco Bodt. My fo-number is 555-4209, and I live in twenty-one-oh… Twenty-one… Uhhh… I forgot...” The child’s ramblings (obviously memorized—learned in case of an emergency, no doubt) fade to the back of Jean’s mind as he struggles to comprehend what Nico has revealed to him.

Has he… Has he seriously never called the boy by his name? Jean finds this near impossible to believe, given that they have been residing in the same household for two or so weeks now, but he supposes it _is_ entirely possible (though how Nico could possibly have noticed this in that distracted, flighty brain of his is beyond him). As much as it pains him to admit (and he will likely never admit it aloud, but he cannot deny confessing it to himself), he can already feel a pool of guilt filling his stomach; if Nico has been focusing on something as petty as that, then it’s no wonder the boy has despised him these past few weeks. If Jean can’t even give him the honor of calling him by name, rather than “kid” or some other variant, then how could he possibly have expected to receive any higher level of respect from the poor child? Obviously, for one reason or another, Nicolas has let something like that get to him over the last fourteen days, and like hell is Jean going to let this continue. He’ll be sure to watch this sort of thing more often henceforth.

“Hey… Nico?”

The sudden utterance by the older man appears to catch Nico off-guard, and he flinches for the briefest of moments, eyeing Jean warily in a sudden change in mood. “What?” he inquires, voice calming, smile diminishing, though the distrust has at long last fled from his curious blue-hazel gaze; it has been replaced with a caution of sorts, far more thoughtful than suspecting.

Jean reaches out and hoists him up again, picking him up off of the countertop and setting him down—he lowers himself to a crouch, meeting Nico at eye level and bearing a mischievous smirk. “What do you say we play a trick on your daddy?”

~w~w~w~

Marco Bodt returns home around ten-thirty that night, shutting the door silently behind him as he enters with a curious “hm?”—the interior of the house is dark, save for a bit of moonlight seeping through the open windows. Setting his bag down by the door, he wanders into the living room, noting the faint flicker of the television as a long-forgotten movie mumbles quietly beneath the faint sound of gentle snoring. Raising an eyebrow curiously, he meanders over to the sofa, eyes settling on the two figures resting on opposite ends of each cushion; Nico lies with his ear pressed into the arm of the couch, fast asleep, while Jean leans his jaw on his knuckles and props his head up with an arm—his gaze flits from the television (which presently plays _The Empire Strikes Back_ ) to his boyfriend, noticing the new presence in the room—his irises glow a golden hue in the striking light.

A small, cunning smirk grows on Jean’s face at the sight of Marco approaching, and as the older man leans down to greet him, he reaches up to place a hand on the top of Marco’s head, weaving his fingers through the thin locks that seem black in the surrounding darkness. “Nico fell asleep watching _Star Wars_. Crazy kid—I mean, seriously, who _does_ that?”

A breathy chuckle escapes Marco’s lips as he turns his head to glance briefly at the boy on the opposite end of the sofa. “He’s never been really interested in movies. Hmm…” Resting his chin on the back of his hands, Marco leans down on the back of the couch and returns his attention to his lover, granting him a small, serene smile as the mood between them loosens. “So was he good for you?”

“Yeah. Couldn’t have been better.”

“Huh.” Marco’s eye widens in wonder—the blind eye remains veiled beneath that familiar, godforsaken eyepatch that Jean has come to rue almost as much as Eren. In fact, all the patch really needs to complete its disgust-inducing state is an image of Eren printed on the surface. He should probably avoid voicing that—the last thing Marco needs to hear is another way to piss him off. “That’s… Wow. Heh heh. I’m… actually really proud of you.”

“You know it.”

A certain softness lingers in Marco’s eyes, and his lips part in a large yawn. “I’m exhausted… Think I’ll go ahead to bed, if that’s cool with you.”

“Mhmm,” Jean hums, risking a quick glance at Nico’s snoozing form before tightening his hold on Marco’s hair, if only slightly, and tugging the other man’s face down to meet his; he connects his mouth to Marco’s for a short, simple kiss—no tongue, no lewd sounds or stray nips, just a simple exchange between lips in an affectionate farewell. Jean releases his hold on Marco’s head and pulls away, but not before giving a cocky chuckle and craning his neck back to peer at his lover as said man moves to walk away. “Mind if I surprise you in the morning?”

Marco stops mid-step, rolling his eyes at the implications of Jean’s words, though he cannot will down the small grin that forms on his lips. “What kind of surprise?”

“You’ll have to wait and find out,” Jean murmurs with a smirk, chancing a quick wink before returning his attention back to the movie. “’Night, Freckle-fanny.”

“Goodnight, Horseface.”

Marco slips away down the hall after this casual exchange of pet names (or perhaps just mockery, as they aren’t exactly affectionate, appealing names by any means—but, then, they had mostly agreed to avoid terms like “Pumpkin” and “Pudding” and other such things when they started dating, for neither party was especially keen on being referred to as various obscure food items). Upon hearing the bedroom door creak shut, Jean stifles back a snort-laced bout of laughter and lifts a hand to cover his mouth as the absurdity of it all lingers in the back of his mind. Allowing his eyes to roam over to Nico’s form opposite him, Jean reaches across and nudges the boy on the shoulder, prodding him with a single finger in an effort to grab his attention once more. “Hey, Nicolas, you still awake?”

In a single, breakneck motion, Nico jolts upward into a sitting position, releasing a breathy laugh—he catches himself in time and quiets his fit of giggles, though the huge grin on his face does not falter. “We tricked’ed him!”

Jean cannot resist the temptation to smile at the child’s reaction—even if they aren’t totally chummy yet, there is no denying that Nicolas Bodt is awfully adorable, in his own unique way. “We did _tricked’ed_ him. Okay, now we have to wait for him to fall asleep.”

The elation on the boy’s face fades for a moment. “Is that gonna take a long time?”

“It shouldn’t.” Jean shakes his head. “He falls asleep pretty much as soon as his head hits the pillow. Give it twenty minutes or so.”

Nico’s face falls into that ever-familiar frown, and his arms fold over his chest as he casts a frustrated glare in Jean’s direction. “But that’s forever…”

“That’s not forever.” Letting loose a loud yawn, Jean digs a hand into his pocket and withdraws an object from its depths, giving it a lofty toss to Nico’s body and smirking as it hits him in the nose (though thankfully not hard—with Jean’s luck, he half expects it to break the kid’s nose upon impact).

“Hey!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Jean shrugs his shoulders. “Anyway, you use that one, and I’ll use this.” He withdraws another from his pocket, grinning all the wider at the prospect of what they’re about to do. “Now remember what we talked about earlier. Just like those weird Connect-the-Dots coloring books, right?”

“Uh-huh!” The grin returns full-force to Nico’s face; he picks up the marker from his lap and removes the cap, giggling wheezily at the idea. “Almost time?”

“Almost.”

“… Jean?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you just kiss Daddy?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to Carlile (http://gokuderaa.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this work--heaven knows this chapter needed it rather extensively. Thank you so much~. ^.^
> 
> *Catgroove--This is Jean's ringtone, for anyone who was wondering about that.  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKSV7LNRzmc
> 
> **As for Nico's name, you can interpret in one of two ways. Based off of the assumption that Marco is Belgian, you could go with the Dutch pronunciation of his name (NEE-ko and NEE-ko-las) or the French pronunciation (NEE-Kuu and nee-ko-LAH). I'm leaving that up to your interpretation.


	4. Chapter 4

“You shrimpy son of a—”

“ _Jean…_ ” From his side of the mattress, Marco groans out his lover’s name, tugging the covers over his face to shield his eye from the nagging light that glows from the bedside lamp. He chances a quick glance in the other’s direction, gaze flitting idly between the phone in Jean’s hand and the scowl on his face as he sits back against the headboard. Shifting deeper into the sheets, Marco flings an arm across Jean’s legs and pulls himself nearer, if only slightly, desperately seeking the abysmal paradise of sleep and doing darn near anything to reach it once more.

Gnashing his teeth together, Jean brings his thumb down forcefully on the “end call” button and carelessly tosses the phone at a chair on the opposite end of the room; one hand darts up into his hair, curling his fingers around dirty blond strands and kneading his scalp with his knuckles as haphazard thoughts strain to reorganize themselves in his head. “I don’t believe this…” he utters, barely perceivable as his tongue grows leaden and his anger sobers. “ _Fuck…_ ”

“What’s the matter?” Marco peers up at Jean with his good eye, scooting up to sit beside him at the head of the mattress; his hand lifts lazily to cover his mouth as a wide, tired yawn slips past his lips. “You seem stressed.”

“I just got fired.” Jean’s voice has grown flat, emotionless—his eyes stare aimlessly ahead, fixated upon the opposite wall, unwavering—something about this isn’t right… It _can’t_ be right. He had put in _extra_ effort this past week in an attempt to possibly earn a raise—there’s no way that he should have been fired for working overtime! “At least, almost. He said I have two weeks left “to step up my game”, anyway. Or I’ll be let go.”

If there’s one person on this earth that Jean both respects and loathes with the passion of a spontaneously-combusting 90’s guitarist, it’s Levi. The reasons behind his hatred are too infinite to list, though perhaps the thing that digs its way under his skin the most is the man’s blunt way of saying… well, just about _anything_. While job-searching about a year ago, he had decided that food service (particularly at Muro Maria) was probably the best match for someone like him—the food is rad as hell, the customers are usually friendly and tip well enough (give its high prices), and it puts him one step closer to Mikasa, since Eren works there too (though that’s more or less irrelevant at this point). When he accepted the job offer, he had been so elated that he invited Connie and Eren over (hey, Jean was on a blissful high—he wasn’t in his right mind) and they drank the night away (Armin had crashed the little shindig later that evening after an invite from Eren, and things got even _more_ interesting, given the apocalyptic combination of Armin and rum [his drunken scheme had involved a ball of yarn and four containers of spray-can cheese], but that’s another story for another day).

Everything was supposed to be perfect.

And then he met Levi “Ramsay” Rivaille.

Needless to say, it hadn’t taken long to figure out why the (irrefutably short) man had earned such a nickname. While Levi only associates himself with the wait staff every so often, it might as well be a meeting between sharks and minnows. In a tank the size of an outhouse. After a week’s starvation.

(And no, this has nothing to do with swimming pools).

Jean’s focus shifts at last, and his eyes dart down to his lap where his hands rest, one folded over the other. “I’m pissed. I don’t get it! I didn’t do anything! C’mon, you know me! Maybe that bastard’s finally lost it. What is he, like, forty now? What have I done that would get me fired, hm? Son of a _bitch_ …”

A small sigh sounds from Marco’s side of the bed, and the freckled face peers over at him with a creased brow and a small frown, a rare sight. “Jean, just calm down. You have the next two weeks, right? Just go in and show him that you’ve got what it takes. You’ll be fine.”

“Oh, Marco, just cut the crap already!” The words escape Jean’s mouth before he has the chance to think them through, and his lips clamp shut almost immediately after. It isn’t often that he gets irritable enough to snap at his boyfriend, but it is under such unfortunate circumstances that Jean uncovers a side of Marco that he never wishes to see again (yet, the inevitable happens—they have only seriously fought once before, and it’s a time Jean tries his darndest to forget).

The pity in Marco’s eyes dims, giving way to an appropriate level of frustration. “Jean, calm down. Please. You’re tired, and you need to talk to your boss _in person_.”

“I’m kind of tired of your bullshit, too, you know.” The amber in Jean’s hazel eyes flashes dangerously as they narrow at his lover. He’s in the wrong, trying to pick a fight, but he needs to let off some steam, and unfortunately Marco has wound up in the crossfire. “You’re so optimistic that it drives me up the _wall_. You keep saying things’ll 'be fine', but that doesn’t mean shit, you know.”

“Don’t start…” A small whine coats Marco’s voice, and he leans down to lean his cheek on the top of Jean’s head. “It’s too late.”

Squirming away from the unwelcome touch, Jean scoots to the edge of the bed, folding his arms stubbornly across his chest. “Yeah, well, it’s only 12:30, so you can take your 'too late' and shove it up your freckled ass.”

~w~w~w~

The bedroom door promptly slams shut in his face.

So…

Okay.

In hindsight, maybe picking a fight with the friendly freckled fellow wasn’t the brightest idea Jean has ever had.

But can you really blame him? Ever since that traumatic phone call with Humanity’s Shortest, Jean has been positively on edge—how could this have _possibly_ happened? Did some customer complain about him or something? Surely that couldn’t be it—it’s not as if he’s ever made any drastic mistakes (apart from spilling the tray of pasta all over his boyfriend, but he wouldn’t consider that a mistake in the long run [then again, after their recent spat, he might wind up regretting _that_ , too]). And what’s Levi’s problem, anyway? Is he such a sourpuss because of his impossibly laughable height? Is his old age finally catching up with him (hey, Jean is just short [pfft] of twenty-one, and Levi is practically old enough to be his [albeit young] father, so… Well, in short [*snort*], Levi might as well be the one accompanying him to Bingo Bash… Stupid old fart). Why else would he be so indiscernibly irate?

Levi could still be a virgin.

A forty-year-old virgin.

Nah, that couldn’t be it—Levi, try as he may, isn’t comparable to Steve Carrell.

Maybe he just scorns Eren Jaeger as much as Jean does—after all, Levi is the one who trains Eren in the kitchen after his shift as a waiter ends, and that must surely be one of the worst jobs in the history of occupational suckery. Heaven knows that if Jean were in such a position as Levi, he would have dropped Eren _ker-splat_ into a giant pot of bagnun right off the bat (that way, Eren would not only burn himself silly, but he would also reek of anchovies [Jean can’t help but muse that he should probably look into that sometime soon anyway]).

Whatever the case, be it his constant scowl or his ridiculous undercut (his hair doesn’t even _compare_ to Jean’s), something about Levi gets under his skin, and if he thinks that firing Jean is—

—Wait… does this mean that _Jaeger_ is doing a better job of working tables than _Jean_?

Oh, _hell_ no.

A fist rises to beat the wall a single time in frustration; a low growl bubbles in his throat as he struggles to withhold all temptation to lose his temper. He’ll have to make the best of these next few weeks if he has any hope of regaining whatever shred of pride he has left.

Connie (and Eren) must never know.

Readjusting the strings on his flannel pants, Jean strides down the hall and makes his way into the living room; he rounds the corner into the kitchen after mulling over his current circumstances, flipping the light switch and wincing at the bright fluorescent glow that jabs into his pupils. Blinking rapidly in effort to adjust to the light, he crosses the kitchen and approaches the refrigerator, pulling the door open and leaning forward to peer inside. His eyes lazily linger here and there, searching tiredly until they fall upon the roll of cookie dough sitting in the corner on the top shelf.

His stomach groans audibly at the sight.

Reaching forward, he snatches up the roll of dough and shuts the door, maneuvering around the island in the kitchen to sit at the bar; his socked foot hooks around the metal leg of a barstool and pulls it out.

“Jean…?”

_Shit shit shit shit shit shi—_

“—hey, Nico.” Spinning on his heel (and almost stumbling in the process—his hands fling out to latch onto the back of the stool to catch himself), Jean finds himself staring down into the curious, drowsy hazel eyes of Nicolas Bodt. “It’s almost one o’clock in the morning, you know. You should be in bed.”

“You should be in bed, too!” he whines in protest; his lower lip pooches out in defiance. “And you can’ eat dessert. It’s super _super_ late.”

“Well, I’m a super super _adult_. So I’ll eat whatever the he—eck I want.” His eyes linger on the boy’s face for a moment, absorbed in that wide blue-brown gaze that so admiringly peers up at him. The child has been on relatively good terms with him for almost a month now—it’s almost too unreal for Jean to fully comprehend.  It feels as if Nico had shoved animal crackers into his pillow just yesterday—and now… well, Jean is still _far_ from being a “parental figure” (which is probably for the best, on both of their ends), but most of the fear or resentment that the boy once felt towards his father’s boyfriend has mostly dissipated. It’s actually sort of funny—Nico’s personality is more on par with Jean’s than Marco’s, which is truly a bizarre coincidence, considering the fact that Marco has been the child’s primary caretaker sine his birth (apparently Nico is a lot like Mina, too—who was, to a certain extent, similar to Jean, according to Marco, so it only makes sense [in a really strange, roundabout way]).

Pushing the barstool a bit further out, Jean moves to sit down, though catches himself halfway—his eyes land on Nico’s sleepy form one last time before rolling up to match the crooked half-smirk on his lips. “Alright, kid, you got me. Sit down.”

Nico’s face breaks out into a cheery grin as Jean pats the leather cushion of the stool, motioning for him to come nearer and sit down; the child obliges without an inkling of hesitation, mirthfully clambering up the stool and immediately eyeing the roll of cookie dough as Jean pushes him in. “I wanna eat!”

“You’re kidding,” Jean mumbles, mostly to himself, though the irked little “hey” that spouts from the boy’s mouth in response tells him that Nico most definitely heard his sarcastic quip. Serves him right though—he can’t be too nice to this kid, lest he wish the boy to develop his father’s manipulative nature. Hoisting himself up onto the second stool, Jean sits down and breathes out a little sigh, allowing a wide, loud yawn to slip out before reaching for the sugary confection. “So why aren’t you in bed?”

“’cause I can’t sleep…” As if on cue, Nico lips part sleepily in reaction to Jean’s yawn. “I’m not tired yet.”

“Gonna have to call baloney on that one.” Jean’s smirk grows wider nonetheless as he observes the roll in his hands, turning it over a few times before flipping it onto an end and examining the packaging— _which appears to have been ripped open already._ Indeed, a hastily-knotted twist-tie closes off one end of the cylindrical package, signifying that somebody has been sneaking Jean’s dough on the fly.

It can only be Marco, really.

That sorry, freckle-faced, big-assed, dough-snatching son of a gulper eel…

“Stop looking at me like I just spit on your birthday cake. Cool it.” Shaking his head, Jean untwists the twist-tie and sets it aside. “I’m not gonna make you go to bed. Just don’t tell your dad, got it?”

To say that the child isn’t expecting such a nonchalant response is an understatement, and his grin only intensifies—his freckled cheeks flush red amidst his sudden excitement. “Really?”

“But you have to be quiet, okay? You don’t wanna wake him up. He’s in a _really_ sour mood tonight.” Digging his fingers beneath the thin sheet of plastic, Jean unwraps the end of the roll with a hungry grin—even if Marco has been eating from his dough, he doesn’t appear to have taken much. “Like, sourer than that candy I bought you last week.”

“Whoa…” A look of amazement crosses over the boy’s face, earning him a snigger from Jean’s general direction. In a (somewhat rare) act of benevolence, Jean had purchased two packs of Warheads candies for them to share one afternoon, about a week ago. Nico had been entirely unable to handle one candy before spitting it out with watery eyes; Jean, meanwhile, in a surge of overconfidence, had stuck all sixteen-or-so candies in his mouth at once, and the two of them sat as such, writhing and wailing on the couch with tears of pain dripping from their eyes. It had been well worth the week-long irritation of his tongue—nothing like good ol’ male bonding time.

“And… There,” Jean mumbles, ripping open the plastic to give way to the little chocolate-chip-laced-heaven-in-a-roll. “Dig in.”

Nico does precisely that, leaning over nearer the dough and grabbing a glob of it in his fingers. “It feels all squishy…”

“Well, yeah. It’s cookie dough.” As his eyebrow rises in mild bafflement, Jean pulls a hunk of dough from the roll and stuffs it into his mouth, sighing contently at the sweet taste; call it a girly habit ( ~~and he’ll kill you~~ ) but nothing soothes his anger much more than the saccharine comfort of sugar. “Don’t tell me you’ve never made cookies before. Because if you haven’t, then your daddy deserves another drawing on his face.”

Such a suggestion makes the child snicker; he takes an experimental bite of the cookie dough, and it’s not long before a cheery grin rises upon his face as well. “We make cookies sometimes. Usually for Christmas.” His eyes grow wider at the thought. “S’it almost Christmas yet?”

Jean chews down a few more bits of cookie dough before continuing with a shake of the head. “It’s still summer.” And thank _goodness_. Jean’s not sure he could take another round of gag gifts in his current state of mind (really, though, he rarely ever gets genuine gifts from anyone, perhaps because his friends are all either total assholes or total _weirdos_ —then again, he hasn’t spent a Christmas with Marco, so maybe he would actually receive a gift or two of real merit [rather, something besides horse-head masks and My Little Pony memorabilia—the horse jokes have been old since tenth grade, but Connie just _can’t_ seem to let them go).

“Aww…” Nico grabs another chunk of dough and takes a bite out of it, licking his lips and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “I wanna bake cookies… Las’ Christmas, um, we made over a hundred cookies! That’s what Uncle Armin says, anyway. They were reindeers and bells and snowmen… Oh, an’ Eren made a giraffe and a gorilla and other stuff! It was _so_ cool!”

Pfft, Eren _would_. Who ever heard of a Christmas Giraffe? That’s what he gets for being such a prick—with great atrocity comes great idiocy (or something like that). It only figures that—

—Hold on a minute.

“Wait, you made cookies with Eren? Eren _Jaeger?_ ”

"Mhmm!” The child’s face lights up even more so, though not before another sleepy yawn erupts from his lethargic form. “Me and Daddy and Armin and Eren always make cookies on Christmas! And sometimes Daddy has other people over like Mommy’s friend Annie and Rein ‘n’ Bert and Connie and…”

Nico continues to list off the various adults that have likely _ever_ been over to the house in his four years of life, but alas, his voice falls on deaf ears the moment the word “Eren” is mentioned. It is, in times such as these, that Jean often forgets that his “friends” and Marco’s friends mostly consist of the same people (really, how it is that they never managed to meet after all of this time is beyond him). So… long story short, Eren has been bonding with this (strange, devilish, freckled, adorable, inherently evil) child long before Jean came into the picture.

Essentially, poor Nico has been exposed to Jaeger germs for over a year—perhaps even since his birth—no, since his _conception_ (okay, _eughhh_ , even Jean knows that’s absurd). Well, the time has surely come to remedy this wrong. Time to cleanse the poor child of his Erenitis—his Jaegeroma.

“Nico, get your hands out of the dough.”

If Jean had more of a heart (and a lesser sense of anger), he might have been dismayed upon seeing the child’s face fall in the manner that it does; the boy takes after his father in looks and facial expressions, if nothing else. Nonetheless, the questioning look that Nico so dejectedly bears is transformed almost instantly as he watches Jean slide off of the stool and over to the oven—he pushes the “preheat” button on the console before turning to meet the younger’s gaze once again.

“We’re making cookies.”

“Choco-chip cookies?”

“This is chocolate chip dough, so yeah.”

If anyone on this godforsaken planet could rival Marco Bodt in physical displays of jollity, then it is his son, for it is in this moment of realization that the child’s face lights up in what Jean believes to be the most cheery expression that he has ever witnessed—his freckled cheeks lift and dimple, giving way to a broad, toothy grin as he hops happily off of the barstool. “I wanna do it!”

“What, bake?” A short snort rolls through Jean’s nostrils at the idea; he can only imagine what Marco would do to him if he discovered that Jean had allowed a four-year-old boy to operate an oven at one o’clock in the morning—heck, Marco will kill him for letting Nico stay awake this long to begin with. All in all, this is naught more than a recipe for dismemberment, disembowelment—regardless of the outcome of their baking escapade, if Marco learns of Jean’s irresponsibility, he will flip his lid and very well might kick him out of the household. There’s no telling what a Bodt will do in a state of pure rage.

But, then, since when does he let the risk set him back? Sure, he acknowledges that he might indefinitely wind up on Marco’s bad side after tonight, but does he _really_ , in all honesty, give a flying rat’s ass?

Besides, as long as he supervises Nico while they bake, what should it matter, in the long run?

“Sure, go ahead.” He shrugs his shoulders indifferently, chancing a quick yawn before strolling lethargically over to the cabinet by the oven; he withdraws a large cookie pan and sets it a bit too forcefully upon the countertop (it clangs upon impact, initiating a tremor that creeps along Jean’s skin, but he doubts Marco could possibly have heard that from the bedroom, especially with the door shut). “But I’m gonna put them in the oven, got it?”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

“I’m serious.” Sticking his tongue out (hey, Jean never denied being a bit childish himself, particularly under high-stress situations [and blatant exhaustion]), Jean snatches up the roll of cookie dough and sets it by the pan, motioning for the boy to come join his side if they have any hope of successfully producing these sweets before Marco learns of their antics. “Your daddy would _kill me_ if you burned yourself doing this. I’m not joking—for real, he’d take me to the roof and throw me off the top of it. Into a pit of scorpions. And alligators. Have you ever played _Pitfall!_?”

“What’s _Pitfall!_?”

“… Nevermind.”

“You’re weird…” Giving a little sniff, Nico clambers over to the countertop, peering across at the cookie sheet which, at his current height, meets him at nose-level. Jean stifles back a snorty snigger, at which Nico frowns and gives a little snort of his own; pouting a bit, the boy steps back a little ways and taps his chin in thought—a comprehension appears to strike in due time, however, and he scurries out of the kitchen for the briefest of moments. A rustling resonates down the hall, accompanied by a brief grunt of effort, another rustling—Jean cannot help the curious lifting of his eyebrows as Nico’s head pokes out from behind the corner. “ _Jeannnn_ , I can’t reach my stool.”

“Wha—just come here.” Giving a small sigh, Jean motions for the boy to come nearer, leaning back against the counter and pulling back further on the dough roll’s packaging. “You can just sit on the counter or something. Heck if I care.”

With eyes growing ever-wider, Nico slips around the corner and peers disbelievingly up at Jean; the uncertainty and distrust in his glare prompts a boisterous chuckle from the adult standing lazily before him. “Daddy doesn’t let me sit on the counter.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not Daddy. So get your butt over here and I’ll lift you up.”

“Daddy’s gonna get mad at you~…” The sing-songy tone in the child’s voice grates on Jean’s ears, and he stubbornly encases his ears in his palms in a pigheaded fashion. “Jean, you’re supposed to be a growd-up!”

“Hey, I’m only twenty.” Approaching Nico with a tiny frown, Jean leans down and hooks his hands beneath the boy’s arms, tugging him upward and swinging him around once before plopping him down (perhaps a bit too firmly) on the countertop—as such, Nico utters a little “ow!” as he is placed onto his bottom. “Sorry. And just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean I’m done growing.”

Far from it, really. Whoever first associated the terms “adult” and “grown-up” needs a serious kick in the balls.

Nico just shrugs, disbelieving but rapidly losing interest. “Whatever… I wan’ make cookies!”

“Whaddaya think I’m trying to do, anyway?”

Seriously, is this kid trying to antagonize him?

… Actually, yes—he probably is.

Shit, he figured that went without saying.

His brain is too tired to function at this point, screw it.

“How do we make ‘em with a roll?” Nico inquires, poking at an exposed glob of dough as it shines enticingly in front of his eyes. “Do we put the whole roll on the pan?”

“You’re supposed to cut it with a knife…” Glancing downward, Jean outstretches a hand and pulls open a drawer, shuffling past a pile of spoons to enclose his fingers around a butter knife; he brings it forward and slices a circular chunk out of the roll, setting it down on the pan in illustration. “See? It’s cookie-shaped now. Easy as all get out.”

Nico’s eyes flit wildly between the roll of cookie dough and the round glob stuck to the pan, thoughts racing as he struggles to put a burst of creativity to words. Finally, he peers up at Jean (who is not too much taller than he is now, thankfully, given the height added by the counter) and tugs at the hem of his wifebeater. “Jean, I wanna make shapes.”

“… Make shapes? Uh… sure.” He sets the knife down beside the pan and kneads the round hunk of dough with his fingertips, straightening the edges until it takes on a more uniform square shape. “It’s a square.”

“No, not a square!” At Jean’s misinterpretation, Nico vigorously shakes his head, pooching his lip out in a frown. “We gotta find the shapes! The snowflake and the candy cane and the star…”

“The cookie cutters?” Jean’s voice grows flatter by the minute as the nagging temptation of sleep strokes his brain and numbs his senses. “Those are for Christmas, though…”

“Why? They’re just shapes. I wanna have shapes…”

“Are you always this whiny when you’re tired? Because it’s driving me up the freaking wall… Where are they?”

“In the drawer by the fridge…” Nico’s lips part in a loud, long yawn; he lifts his arms to rub at his eyes with the backs of his hands. “… I think.”

One-thirty draws ever-nearer, and Jean is seriously beginning to wonder how long it will take before the boy falls asleep in his spot; the shadowy rings that rim his eyelids rival those of even Levi, a feat that Jean would not have thought possible prior to this witnessing. A part of Jean, however small (heh heh), cannot help but wonder if Nico can stay awake long enough to make clean cuts with the Christmassy shapes—oh, right, he had almost forgotten about those (though he hardly thinks them necessary—a cookie is a cookie, through and through, and there’s nothing particularly beneficial to cutting them into cutesy holiday forms… can one even cut chocolate chip cookies with those things? He’s never tried, but the idea sounds a little bizarre).

(Oh well—better a reindeer than a horse. He’d never live _that_ one down…)

Lifting a brow in interest, Jean reaches outward and yanks open the drawer beside the refrigerator, revealing a little baggy brimming with miniature outlines, each rounded and uniform and bearing a coat of synthetic red or green paint. Between the stylized form of each cutter and the obnoxiously saturated colors that adorn each piece… Well, it’s as if a Christmas elf himself barfed them up. Some little wintry shits-and-giggles elf. A yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-eggnog elf, shorter in stature than Eren—no, than _Levi_.

The mental image of Levi garbed in nothing more than striped candy-cane stockings and those stupid belled shoes burns suddenly into his retinas.

Oh dear god, _why_.

“Eugh...” A shudder undulates along his spine as he struggles to recover from such a repulsive thought. “Alright, take your pick.”

Nico reaches for the bag as soon as Jean places it on the counter, jerking the zipped top open and sticking his hand inside; he withdraws it mere moments later with a reindeer clutched in his little fingers. “I wanna use this one first! The reindeer is the best.”

“No way, kid, the best shape is the snowflake.”

“What? Is not!”

“It’s _definitely_ the snowflake.”

“Is _not_. The snowflake can fight me.”

“Fight you?” Jean cannot help the amused chuckle that snorts out from within. It’s painfully obvious that Nico believes he is all but damning this plastic outline of a snowflake, but, all the same, the child’s misinterpreted wording is enough to entertain him to no end in his delirious state of fatigue.  “Sure, keep saying that. Don’t say it around Marco though.”

“Why not?”

“Just scoot over here and cut the darned cookies already.”

~w~w~w~

The two wind up unwrapping the entire package and dropping the glob of dough onto a cutting board, flattening it out and cutting shapes out like this (mostly for convenience's sake, and in an effort to make as little mess as possible—hey, even if Marco isn’t notorious for being a clean freak, Jean has no interest in getting machete’d in the morning for leaving a bunch of slimy clumps of cookie dough all over the kitchen [Marco always seemed like the type to own a machete, Jean thinks, or maybe a marshmallow gun. Either one is plausible, really]). However ridiculously unfitting these holiday-oriented shapes may be, the experience of cutting cookies has been a curious one indeed, if only because both parties are too exhausted to form coherent thought or retain any shred of dignity—Nico had burped at one point, which left both him and Jean doubled over in a fit of sugar-high, sleep-deprived laughter. All in all, while the experience is certainly a strange one, it has been worth the lost hour or so of sleep that the two have endured.

Nonetheless, the time comes when such fun must cease, and as the clock strikes two, it becomes entirely evident that Nico is struggling to keep his eyelids open. As Jean leans down to set the last pan into the oven, he peers over his shoulder at the child, who gives a long, loud yawn and curls his body inward a little. “Don’t tell me you’re ready for bed already?”

“No, ‘m not…” The boy stifles another yawn to the best of his ability, but a little sigh still manages to slip past his lips as his head lulls to the side. “’m not tired yet. Stupid Jean.”

“You’re starting to look like my boss, with those eyes. For real.” Closing the oven door, Jean tugs the cloth mitts off of his hands and sets them on the countertop beside the sink, stepping over to Nico and setting his elbows on the surface near the child; he rests his chin on his palms and meets the other’s glossed-over gaze at eye-level. “Come on, kid, let’s get you to bed. You’re not fooling anyone.”

“Don’t wanna…” Nico mutters, barely coherent as he wipes a stray string of saliva that had snuck out from the corner of his mouth. Despite his reluctance, however, he holds his arms out; Jean chuckles at this trivial victory over his rival and hooks his hands under the boy’s arms, sitting him down onto the wooden floor once again.

“Come on. We’ll already be lucky if your dad doesn’t figure out that you were up this late.” Reaching out, Jean snatches up the child’s hand in his and tugs him in the direction of the hallway. “You coming? I _will_ pick you up if I have to. Upside down, too. I’ll make the blood rush to your head.”

“That sounds like fun…” Nico mumbles, grinning groggily, as he grips Jean’s hand in return as the older practically _drags_ him down the hall and into his bedroom. “Are we gonna eat the cookies t’morrow?”

Chancing a smirk, Jean nods his head and releases Nico’s hand, readjusting the dinosaur-print comforter and pulling it back. “Well, _yeah_? Unless I eat them all while you sleep. Which I might do, you know—not gonna lie, I’m hungry as heck.”

“You’d better not.” Sticking his tongue out at the man, Nico hops onto the mattress and slinks beneath the covers, tugging them up to his chin and burying himself deeper into the sheets. “’Cause then I’d hate you…”

“You and I both know that that’s bull.” The devious smirk on Jean’s face down not falter; if anything it stretches wider as he lowers a hand to ruffle the child’s hair. “You don’t hate me. Y’know, I don’t think you ever really hated me. Let’s be honest, here.”

“No. I hated you.” Nico shakes his head, narrowing his eyes a bit, though the contented expression does not flee from his features. “Now I just don’t like you.”

“Clearly.”

The two exchange the briefest of pouts before bursting into a crazed bout of synchronous laughter, stifled at first by teeth on lower lips but released at last in a moment of sleepy mirth. “Heh heh… Anyway… ‘night, Nico.”

“’Night… Oh! Wait!”

Jean pauses mid-step I the doorway, gripping the knob in his fingers as he looks back at the child’s form in the dark. “Yeah?”

“The cookie ‘n the corner’s yours, mmkay?”

If even only mildly, Jean’s expression softens at the child’s words; despite their undefinable relationship, he cannot help but wonder if he is beginning to seem like a friend, at the very least, to the son of his lover—and, to be frank, he’s not so certain that he wants to be much else. If he winds up as a parental figure, so be it, but he has a sinking feeling that he will always be one to spoil the kid senseless (heck, he already does, really). “’Kay, awesome. Thanks, kiddo. Goodnight.”

With a final, gratified smile in the boy’s direction, Jean exits the room and shuts the door silently behind him, careful to turn the knob in accordance with the wood’s meeting of the frame in effort to make as little sound as possible.

Not that it much matters, Jean thinks bitterly, when he turns around and promptly bumps his nose into Marco’s chin.

And no, he doesn’t leap back in surprise—furthermore, he does _not_ shriek at the top of his lungs, and he does _not_ flinch when his back brushes the wall, almost causing him to topple to the floor. Don’t think that for a minute. Because it _isn’t_ true.

… All the same, he’s _screwed_.

~w~w~w~

“Calm your tits, Marco.”

In the end, Jean winds up back in the kitchen, sporadically eyeing the pans in the oven as he paces from the garage door to the kitchen table and back again, watching Marco out of his peripherals on occasion to reassure himself that the freckled man hasn’t whipped out that machete. Luckily, his boyfriend seems far too exhausted for murderous intent, but that doesn’t mean that he’s letting his guard down. Nope, not around a Bodt. There’s no telling what Marco is thinking in this moment, especially after their little spat earlier. “He got up after I did because he couldn’t sleep.”

“And it had nothing to do with you?” Marco asks, plucking a fresh, hot cookie from an already-baked pan; he takes a bite and winces at the molten chips on his tongue, though a blissful smile soon replaces the painful look. “These aren’t half bad. The middle didn’t cook all the way, though.”

“Fine by me—I didn’t want to bake ‘em anyway. _I_ was fine just eating the dough.” But then the darned kid had to go and mention _Eren Frigging Jaeger_ … Yet again, the source of Jean’s sorrow and agony is that damned Jaeger brat.

“So you’re saying it _isn’t_ your fault that you stayed up with him and baked cookies at two in the morning?” Despite the probable disappointment behind Marco’s words, his lips are upturned into a sleepy, amused smile.

“No… It’s Eren’s.”

At this, Marco lifts an eyebrow inquisitively, but wisely decided not to question this bizarre claim, and instead finishes off the chocolate chip cookie in his fingers. “Tired, are you?”

The younger man shoots his companion a short glare. “I’m serious. Nico was talking about how you had everyone over for cookies or something, and that pissed me off. So we made cookies.” A faint blush rises in Jean’s cheeks and snakes around to his ears at the ridiculousness of this suggestion. Okay, he cannot deny that, in hindsight, this was a rather ludicrous endeavor; in the end, though, was it truly so trivial? Why, he got to bond with Nicolas, at the very least, even if it was mostly through teasing each other or munching on the flawless, fattening perfection of chocolate chip cookie dough. “Look, I dunno if you’re still pissed at me, or what, but can you stop smiling like that? It’s really freaking me out; I can’t tell if you wanna kill me or start making out.”

Marco watches him lean down to open the oven and pull out the final pan of cookies. Jean sets them down on the cutting board and turns off the appliance with a small sigh, wiping a bit of sweat from his brow at the sudden rush of heat. Grinning only wider, Marco reaches out for another cookie and takes a bite, slinging his arms around Jean’s middle and pulling him closer from behind. “I think it’s a little bit of both.”

“What did you slip into your tea last night?”

“Hm?”

“You’re acting drunk,” Jean states flatly, turning his neck to glance impassively into his lover’s gleeful, groggy eyes. “If you’re _that_ tired, go to bed. And weren’t you just mad at me, like, an hour ago?”

“I’m just happy to see that you’re connecting with Nicolas, that’s all.” Exhaling slowly, Marco lifts the cookie to Jean’s lips, nudging him in the mouth with the edge and bearing a sly smile all the while. “C’mon, take a bite.”

To say that Marco is starting to concern Jean is a vast understatement. He has never witnessed his freckled friend behaving so… oddly? Nonetheless, he takes a bite of the cookie and wills down the heat on his face as he chews the sugary treat as quickly as he possibly can and swallows it down, nearly choking as Marco’s lips suddenly brush along the side of his neck. Is Marco seriously over their prior fight already? Either way, why would he suddenly feel all _romantic_ as a result? The prospect is enough to nauseate him. “What are you trying to do?”

“What do you mean?” A gentle laugh resonates against his neck as Marco’s lips traverse his skin, rising up to curl his tongue around the shell of the younger man’s ear. “I’m just proud of you, that’s all. And you’ve been under a lot of stress, so… I’m sorry. You don’t have to be so accusing.”

As Marco gives his waist another affectionate squeeze, Jean cannot help the small grin that births itself upon his lips. Setting the mitts down, he spins around and ensnares the other’s lips in his own in a long, deep kiss. He pulls away after a moment, nose brushing against Marco’s in a dorky display of love; he can feel little puffs of breath against the pores of his skin, the gentle tickle of their lips as they brush in tantalizing, near-kisses—Jean’s hand rises to sift through Marco’s damned _beautiful_ dark hair (he daresay that it gives Mikasa’s a run for her money—a feat he once thought impossible). “You’re a little shit, you know that?”

Although Jean cannot pinpoint the source, Marco must find something humorous laced within his words, for his older lover soon bursts into a fit of guttural laughter, burying his face in Jean’s shoulder.

“What’s got you so cracked up?”

“Just… Don’t worry about it. You’re so ridiculous…” Shaking his head with a serene smile, Marco lowers his face to capture Jean’s mouth in his once more. They remain as such, lips melding and bodies pressing nearer one another—a haziness consumes Jean’s mind at the sensation because _fuck_ has it been too long since they made out. They disconnect, however briefly, as Marco’s tongue darts from his mouth to flick along Jean’s lower lip; the other complies, parting his lips with a sigh and their mouths fuse once more, each desperate for greater closeness as the bittersweet flavor of chocolate coats their gums and anesthetizes their senses. Fleeting seconds pass—they separate, breaths intermingling as their gazes meet, half-lidded and lulled caramel and wide, erratic hazel. “… Jean?”

“Yeah…?”

“Y’know, it’s been almost two months since you moved out…” Marco’s hands drift downward to rest on either side of Jean’s hips; his stare fixates itself intensely onto that of his boyfriend as he presses himself nearer still, breath tethering to his throat as the younger man shivers pleasantly beneath his touch. “And we haven’t… Well—”

“You want to bang.”

“… I want to bang.”

The cookies are not given a second thought until the sun has long since risen.

~w~w~w~

So it is that Jean eyes the cookies on their pans around noon the next day.

Whoops… Guess he got a bit too caught up in his lover last night.

No, that was _not_ an innuendo.

Pfft, how insulting. He’s not Connie; he wouldn’t make such crude jokes.

Not this early in the day, anyway.

Tugging at the collar of his shirt, Jean steps lazily over toward the kitchen table, where Marco and Nico sit presently; the child busies himself with two cookies set aside on a napkin (one of which has a sizeable bite taken out of it) while his father leans forward on a palm, smiling that familiar, content smile as his eye glances over the crossword page of the newspaper.

“Morning, Nicolas,” Jean mumbles, reaching out to ruffle Nico’s hair with the pads of his fingers (such has become a bit of a habit at this point in their relationship); he greets Marco with a swift peck and a fist-bump.

At this motion, Nico scrunches up his nose and sticks out his tongue. “Eww.”

“What, don’t like me smoochin’ up your daddy?” Sniggering at the boy’s discomfort, Jean leans forward again and presses a quick kiss to Marco’s freckled cheek; the older man blushes a bright red, though cannot stifle the blissful smile that graces his face as he sets the newspaper aside for the time being and shakes his head in embarrassment. “Hey, be glad I love him enough to put up with his cooties at all.”

Nico frowns, though doesn’t seem particularly put off at this point. Instead, he picks up one of his cookies and takes a nibble out of the outer edge, chewing thoughtfully as he glances between his scarlet-faced father and said man’s younger companion. As he reaches for the glass of milk beside the cookies, he gives a sudden lift of the eyebrows and, as he downs the rest of the milk, finally musters up the courage to inquire something. “Are you and Jean gonna get married?”

This is, perhaps, the only moment in Jean’s life where he has felt entirely dazed—at least, the only time that Eren had nothing to do with (but then, there’s always that possibility, he supposes).

He…

Well, he never really stopped to consider that possibility.

It _is_ legal now, but…

Mfmmm.

… Would Marco even _want_ that? Hell, would _he?_ It sounds almost surreal—the aspect of marriage, of being bound to one person, one lover, for the remainder of their lives, and perhaps beyond—it almost frightens him. Almost. A little. (Almost). Thankfully, he is _Jean Motherfucking Kirschstein_ , so it goes without saying that such trivial things as marriage don’t deter him. Why, it’s as if he is entirely shielded from such troubles by a force field of sorts—while he may eventually be bound to Marco by matrimony, he is not even minimally affected by the gravity of such a commitment. He is not put off by the aspect of being infinitely stuck with Marco—he is not put off by the idea of becoming Nico’s secondary guardian by law. Nawww.

… Oh, who is he kidding? He can’t help but be honest with himself; the notion both rivets and terrifies him, right down to the core. Abort mission. Force field don’t fail him now.

Never before has he identified with Susan Storm as much as he is in this moment.

Jean never thought he would admit to something that _bizarre_ , either.

Marco, meanwhile, does little more than chuckle lightly at the inquiry, bearing that familiar, cheery grin that Jean wants so badly to rip from his face, crumple up, and toss into a garbage disposal. The freckled bastard simply shrugs his shoulders, reaching over for his coffee cup before meeting Nico’s eyes. “Well, maybe someday. We haven’t really talked about that yet though.”

“Oh…” Nico glances curiously betwixt the two men, noting their contrasting reactions and their ridiculous embarrassment at being asked such a simple question. Adults are truly baffling; it seems he will never understand them… “Are you gonna have kids?”

“No.” Jean’s answer is almost immediately blurted out, not allowing Marco the chance to answer that question. The other man lifts an eyebrow at his sudden outburst; Jean takes this as a challenge and lifts an eyebrow in return, wearing a face that he hopes conveys the level of incredulity that he feels. “What, Marco? Don’t try to correct me. It’s not even freaking _possible_ , so what’s your problem?”

“What? No, nothing.” Shaking his head, Marco sips a few times at his coffee before leaning back further in his seat, dunking one of the cookies into the torrid black beverage. “What Jean is trying to say is that—well, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t. But that’s okay—you’re worth ten kids put together.”

Although Jean half-expects the kid to go off on the typical four-year-old “why” rampage, Nicolas impresses him by keeping his mouth shut and occupying his tongue with another bite of his cookie. He chews it over, obviously deep in thought as his eyes scrutinize every last chip of the sweet treat. Finally, he swallows it down and peers sidelong at Jean’s face, raising his eyebrows in interest. “The cookies don’t look like their shapes anymore…”

“Oh, yeah? Guess it’s because we used chocolate chip dough instead of shortbread or something. Heck if I know; I’m no Betty Crocker.” Shrugging his shoulders, Jean rises from his chair and maneuvers around the table, approaching the cookie sheets sitting on the end of the countertop. “Which one is mine again?”

“The one in the corner!” Nico pipes up from the opposite end of the room, hanging over the back of his chair and draping his arms off of the edge. “It’s a diff’rent shape than the others.”

One cookie in particular stands out rather apparently to Jean, so he assumes this is the treat in question and picks it up tentatively with the tips of his fingers. Turning it over in his hands a few times, Jean takes a little nibble from the perimeter as his brain struggles to register the shape. “Thanks… What is it? It looks kinda like the reindeer…”

“It’s a horse!”

From his seat beside the child, Marco stifles a silent snigger into his hand, nearly choking on his coffee in the process—and it’s a damned unfortunate thing he _hadn’t_ , Jean thinks with a snort, for nothing would brighten his mood right now much more than watching Marco splutter hot coffee from his nose. After shooting a quick glare in the older man’s direction, Jean forces himself to observe the shape once more, finally capable of making out the barely-perceivable, childlike form of a horse in the lumpy mass of cookie. “… Why?”

“’Cause there was a weird bunch of dough left…” Nico shrugs, mimicking Jean in his actions and earning another little chuckle from his father. “And you’re like a horse anyway. More than a reindeer.”

“What, because I have a long face?”

“’Cause you’re not a normal Daddy. But you’re not just a stranger either.” Such words seem to register further with the insightful boy, and he takes another bite from his candy-cane-shaped cookie as he mulls the thoughts over in his ever-active brain. “What _are_ you?”

“Not a horse?”

“No!” Nicolas shakes his head adamantly. “That’s not what I mean!”

As Marco motions for Nico to come nearer for an explanation, Jean drowns out their voices for a moment as he observes this dorky, misshapen horse-reindeer hybrid cookie. There probably exists some ulterior symbol, a deep metaphor, somewhere within the batter of this in this doughy treat. In fact, were this his high school English class, he knows perfectly well that it would be worthy of a twelve-page essay—which, considering it’s only one cookie, is rather short for an English essay based solely on one metaphor that probably wasn’t intended by the author anyway.

But, thankfully, this is not that class, and he’s pretty damn hungry.

And so, Jean takes a bite out of the head of the horse and sits back down at the table for a well-deserved morning of tranquil chaos alongside his atypical family. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know when the next chapter will be ready; I have an insanely busy schedule these next couple weeks, so I suppose we'll have to see. :|  
> Thank you for sticking by me this long, at least! I adore you all~. Feedback is ALWAYS appreciated!
> 
> (Credit to Carlile (http://gokuderaa.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this work again--you're the best~)


	5. Chapter 5

“You’re still in _school?_ ”

Were the hazel eyes that stare dubiously into his own any wider, Jean wagers they would bulge from his skull and fire out, one at a time, like a pitching machine after downing an energy drink (in an alternate universe where such mechanisms could consume human supplements, of course—this isn’t some cheesy 90s sci-fi world with lackluster attempts at CGI and wannabe-human androids). Nonetheless, Nicolas peers up at the older male with an ever-intensifying look of wonderment; his fingers close tighter around Jean’s as they traverse the parking lot with Marco shadowing closely behind.

“But I thought you were a grown-up!”

“You don’t have to be a kid to go to school,” Marco explains from behind, wearing a familiar, gentle smile as he readjusts the curling hem of his shirt. Jean rolls his eyes lightly at the child’s words, though this does not diminish the faint pink that rises into his cheeks; it’s not as if he can help his age—if anything, this is all Marco’s fault for pursuing a student in the first place. Stupid Marco and his strange attraction issues—who goes from loving a spunky girl to showing interest in a male realist? Especially bearing in mind that he has a child that will likely be ever-confused about this arrangement (though, Jean must admit that Nico has taken well to the idea of having a second male guardian; the only strange question he has brought up on the subject revolved around them having more kids, so Jean believes they’ve gotten off relatively easy on that topic).

“In fact,” Marco continues, rounding the corner and beckoning for the other two to follow, “right after you were born, I was finishing up school. If it’s college, you can go to school anytime.”

“Wow…” The child’s eyes flit toward his shoes suddenly as he mulls these thoughts over in his head. “I’m gonna be in school _forever_ …”

At this, Jean snorts, unable to suppress the grimace that grows on his face. “Sure as hell feels like it…” he murmurs under his breath; this earns him a swift elbow to the ribs from his older companion. “Ow. Up yours too, Marco.”

Pursing his lips out in a pout, Jean shrugs the tiny Captain America backpack off of his shoulder and slips it onto Nico’s back, stopping for a moment as they approach the door of Trost Rose Preschool (Jean has never been overly fond of the random-as-hell name of the school, but Marco swears by its reputation [not that Jean expects the other man to remember his experiences in his former preschool all that well, considering the memory capacity of most little boys—he seriously doubts that even the eidetic Marco Bodt could remember little more than the standard glue-eating and finger-painting antics of preschool]). “Alright, Nico. I’m gonna wait out here, so have an awesome time in school and all, because it’s fun until you’re eight or so. Uh… Let’s see… Don’t swallow any glue, eat all of your lunch, and… Oh, crayons _don’t_ go up your nose, because they turn your snot colors and make your nose bleed. Got it?”

“Eww…” Nicolas scrunches his face up in revulsion. “That’s gross.”

“Yes it is, and you wouldn’t do that anyway. Just ignore Jean.” Shaking his head with a crooked grin, Marco takes Nico’s hand in his and lightly tugs him in the direction of the door. “You’ll see him again this afternoon -- remember, Jean is picking you up from school.”

With a quick nod, Nico grins up at his father, but he clings to the older male’s hand like a lifeline; it’s only natural for him to feel apprehensive about entering an unfamiliar building and spending an entire day without his parent. Craning his neck back, he shoots Jean a quick, toothy grin, waving his free hand back behind him as Marco leads him inside.

As the two disappear from his field of vision, Jean releases a contented sigh, folding his arms carefully across his chest to avoid jarring a sizeable bruise marring the skin on his bicep (he had a bit of an accident while serving a table the other day—he’d rather not go into the details, considering it really doesn’t pertain to you [and, furthermore, Connie has blackmail photos, so chances are you will learn from him someday anyway]. [It involves ice hockey and calamari; Jean needn’t say more]).

Nevertheless, it goes without saying that Jean stepped up his game _just_ long enough to reestablish his job at the Muro Maria. Working extra hours and refraining from any overly crude or unnecessary antics on the job was, without a doubt, the hardest thing Jean has ever committed to (perhaps even more so than familiarizing himself with Marco’s son—well, okay, even he’ll admit that’s a stretch [hey, Levi may be intolerable, but at least _he_ never put Legos in Jean’s shoes]), but he persevered and as such earned his position back, along with a miniscule raise. Jean Kirschstein is, hands down, the most kick-ass student waiter in existence. Nothing can deter him now—nothing can pull him down to Eren’s pathetically low level (or down to reality). Jean has meandered into his own little world, appropriately dubbed “Jeantopia”, wherein everything is absolutely _peachy_ , and life is good, and Eren Jaeger’s name is all but a slur (“You’re such a Jaeger!” “Shut your Eren mouth, you motherjaeger!”) Wherein MIkasa serves him blush-pink strawberry-lemon martinis with quirky little toothpick umbrellas and Armin is his personal waiter (why Armin? he must wonder, but he daren’t question his innermost desires—that’s just asking for trouble).  Wherein Connie is naught more than his (literal) dog (he’d be one of those oddly-named mixed breeds, like a cockapoo or a dorkie or something [Jean’s not too picky about such things in his bizarre fantasies, and besides, who the hell knows every dog breed name in existence?]), and Levi—

“Kirschstein.”

—stands right before him with that ever-familiar deep-set scowl disfiguring his stern face.

… Did Jean’s dream just descend into the fiery pits of nightmarish hell? It must be so, for the little (heh heh) devil himself cannot exist in such an authoritative manner in his imagination otherwise. Perhaps, if he blinks rapidly enough, he can will away the image of Levi that has etched itself onto his retinas—he does precisely this, blinking once, twice, thrice, and vigorously shaking his head a few times; Levi does not so much as fizzle.

Does that mean—but there’s _no way_. There’s no way that _this_ could be reality.

Right?

There’s absolutely no fucking chance that his boss, Levi, could be standing here before him, bearing that same vapid glare and that—

Well…

Given his apparent, growing impatience (signified by a faint tapping of a booted foot), Jean supposes that his presence is entirely _possible_.

In fact, it might even be considered _likely_.

Furthermore, why the _actual fucking hell_ is he standing around mulling over these random, useless thoughts? Who does he think he is—Effin’ _Armin?_ Levi is standing

_Right._

_In._

_Freaking._

_Front._

_Of._

_Him._

While it does take an embarrassingly _long_ time for Jean to come to his senses and notice the older man (probably because the top of Levi’s head hits him at the chest), he (eventually) manages to do precisely that; his body flinches suddenly, causing him to stumble backwards into a poor mother, who shoves him away with a string of French curses that Jean, being half-French himself, catches all too well. Hands rising in defense, he cautiously watches the older woman strut away, dragging her baffled daughter alongside her—the realm of fellow parental figures is a frightening thing, particularly considering Jean’s age. Many other parents, he assumes, would think him inexperienced and rather naïve when it comes to the subject of parenthood (which, he can’t deny, pretty much hits the nail into his head—wait, that’s not quite right… Yet, that seems to accurately sum up how he feels about all of this, regardless. Nailing it is).

Oh, right. Levi.

His eyes whip back toward the shorter male standing a few feet away, meeting the uninterested, sardonic glare of his boss with what he hopes is a look both unscathed and steadfast (which means he probably looks like a clueless slab of venison standing aimlessly in the middle of the highway with its tongue flailing about as it twirls in circles in its last moments of life, as if such ridiculous motions could, in any way, shape, or form, prevent it from being struck dead and splattered all over the road) (Jean realizes this probably doesn’t make any sense but _fuck it_ —his head is mush and his heart stopped a long time ago and as a college student, he can’t afford any bills for cardiac arrest, so the topic of logical thought is lost on him in this moment anyw— _holy shit Levi’s moving he’s gonna fucking kil—oh, he’s just wiping his nose._ “You going to say something, Kirschstein?”

“… No.” His voice catches in his throat and resounds as a broken squeak, and like _hell_ does Jean sound like a tortured guinea pig, so keep your false assumptions to yourself. Clearing his throat, he forces his gaze upward, back into Levi’s beady eyes, and steadies himself long enough to muster his voice back up. “Uh… What are you doing here, _sir?_ ”

“I was bringing coffee to one of the teachers here.”

Jean chances a brief, acknowledging nod of the head, though his vision lingers on Levi’s no longer; he swears that staring into those tiny (hurr) pupils for more than three seconds or so is enough to melt his corneas. “What, you related to a teacher here or something?”

“She’s an old coworker.” Despite the continued indifference in Levi’s tone, his eyes narrow slightly, creasing in the corners as his age finally begins to show (that’s what he gets for wearing that frown 24/7, Jean muses with a light grunt—no thirty-some-odd-year-old man should have creases already, the old fart).

“… Just a coworker?” One of Jean’s eyebrows lifts gradually, though the glare that remains on his face ushers the brow back into its rightful place above his eye. Maybe it’s an unhealthy desire to get into trouble—maybe he’s masochistic or something—he honestly doesn’t have the foggiest clue what has compelled him to suddenly grow a pair (with regards to Levi, anyway—he most _certainly_ has a pair, he promises, but Levi will never know—no, wait, that sounds really effin’ _weird_ —you know what, nevermind, there really isn’t a good way to word that. He has balls. End of story). “You’re bringing coffee to an _old coworker?_ ”

“It’s got nothing to do with you.” Unfolding his scrawny arms from across his chest, Levi straightens his back, beginning to stroll away from the other man with a perceptible level of disinterest.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Jean’s face contorts into utter perplexity. “You—do you actually have a _girlfriend?_ ”

The peeved look that crosses over Levi’s minimally-expressive face tells Jean all he needs to know, and he instantly zips his lips once again. Okay, so maybe indirectly mocking his boss about his (lacking) romantic life isn’t the brightest idea he’s had in this lifetime, but it sure as hell isn’t the dumbest (of that he _can_ assure you). And besides—the aspect of anybody having any sort of relationship with Levi, platonic or romantic, is enough to blow Jean’s mind. Whoever this mystery woman is, if she manages to put up with Levi’s bullshit, then surely she must be a goddess (that, or she has no taste [or perhaps a strange bad-boy and/or masochism fixation]).

“So she’s _not_ , then.”

“Why are you suddenly so interested in my love life?” A mildly accusing twinge lingers now in Levi’s voice as he stops walking, glancing back at Jean with the faintest of frowns on his ordinarily-expressionless face. “Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

“Wha—Eugh! Wait, no!” Jean’s hands dart out in front of him, held up in defense at Levi’s _utterly repulsive_ implication; a few parents shoot them questioning looks as they pass by with their children, though Jean is almost certain this is more so because of Levi’s physical appearance than Jean’s loud outbursts (really, with the fifteen-or-so bags under his eyes and his sharp facial features, Levi gives the standard Disney villains—or a few select K-Pop stars—a run for their money). “I’m not interested in you! Just—eww. No. I’m with Marco. Eww. Eullghhh.” A shudder ripples along his skin, and he visibly flinches as a result. “Nah. I just thought you and Eren had a thing. I dunno—my gaydar is pretty shitty at this point. Haven’t been dating Marco long enough or something; beats me.”

“I’m not gay, Kirschstein.”

“Neither am I. I’m just dating a guy.”

They stand like this, Levi silently staring him down and Jean averting his eyes from Levi as if the shorter man were the spawn of Medusa herself. Things have turned hella awkward at this point, Jean muses as he shifts his weight from his left leg to his right, folds his arms across his chest and directs his gaze at the front doors of the school building; where the hell is Marco? This situation is far tenser than Jean would prefer, and the sooner the freckled motherfucker gets his _slow ass_ over here, the sooner he can de-stress and enjoy his short span of free time before his lover has to go to work (Jean is [thankfully] not working today, and his classes don’t start for another week).

At last, Levi speaks, turning once again to walk away from his awkward, loud subordinate. “Her name’s Hanji Zoe, by the way, in case your brat has her. She’s the one with the shitty glasses. She likes mythology and fairytales a little too much. So prepare him for that.”

“Uh… Sure.” He makes a mental note to request a different teacher in the instance that Nico _does_ , in fact, get assigned to Ms. Zoe; any woman close enough to Levi to earn his servitude (hey, buying coffee for someone is both difficult and expensive) must be a fright, and that’s the last type of gal that Nico needs to look after (or to have looking over him).

Wait, why is he suddenly so worried about something so trivial? He can’t _actually_ be thinking in the mindset of a parent, right? There’s no way he’s made it that far into the relationship already—Jean Kirschstein is no father! He’s just a twenty year old student! He can’t be a parental figure so young… especially given his personality type. He isn’t mature enough. Even if he’s managed just fine these past weeks… Well, he never had any interest in being a father—at least, not yet. Before now, it’s been alright enough with Nicolas, since their relationship has been built almost solely on friendship more than authority, but now… Why, Marco and Jean have been dating for how long? Four months? Five? Still not an incredibly long time, but nonetheless, that’s not enough time to make such a grand transition! If he’s suddenly supposed to step up and boss Nico around—that’s far from what he wants. His own father was a less-than-favorable man, so how is he supposed to even know what constitutes as a good level for authority? He supposes he could consult the internet, but he has a feeling that using Yahoo!Answers for everything that Nico asks him will inevitably lead to him washing the boy’s mouth out with spraycan cheese in place of soap, in the event that he accidentally curses or something.

The point is, Jean is really freaking out at this point. He thought he was ready to adapt to life with a child, but actually parenting said child… Well, that might take intervention.

“Jean!” Marco’s voice snaps Jean from his frenzied thought processes, and when the younger male turns toward his partner’s direction, he notices the absence of his boss. Ah well—as far as Jean is concerned, Levi can go jump off a cruise ship. Onto a jagged, rocky shoreline. Near Antarctica. Stripped naked. Alone. With little more than ice and penguins to comfort him.

Ahem.

“Hey,” Marco greets with a breathless smile as he approaches, instantly placing a palm on Jean’s shoulder to steady himself as he struggles to settle himself down. “Ready to go?”

“Uh…” One of Jean’s eyebrows rises in question. “You okay?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah—yeah…”

“You look like you’re gonna puke.”

“… Yeah… Heh…”  As they begin the trek back to the Mini Cooper, Marco’s hand slips from Jean’s shoulder to his hand, squeezing it hard in an effort to calm himself down. “I’ve never left Nico with a bunch of strangers before… It’s just going to take some getting used to.”

“He’ll be fine. School doesn’t start sucking until third grade or so.” Jean shrugs his shoulders and winces as Marco clutches his fingers tighter. “Hey, don’t blow chunks all over me or something. Seriously, you’re _really_ shaking... I’m driving.”

Marco only nods his head, allowing Jean to guide him to the parking lot and over to the Cooper. “Right… I know, I’m worrying too much. He’ll be fine. Right…”

“You’re more of a wreck than I am.” He blinks for a moment, sliding into the car with a short grunt at the thought. “Never thought I’d say that… Anyway, where are we headed? Wanna grab pancakes or something? IHOP’s the shit.”

“Yeah… That sounds good…”

Okay, so Jean is known for being a bit of a spazz in moments of uncertainty, but something is _surely_ wrong with the world when _Marco Franciscus Bodt_ , of all people, is disturbed. Turning the key, he starts the vehicle and pulls out of the parking spot, though not before peering at his boyfriend with a look of concern. At this rate, Marco will be an utter mess by the time they reach the pancake house; it’s probably best if he tries to talk it out with the older man and attempt to calm him through simple conversation (and the heavenly lull of a Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘n’ Fruity). “Hey, so did Nico go into class alright? He didn’t start, like… breaking down or anything, did he?”

“Hm—? Oh, no! Nothing like that!” Marco shakes his head, chancing a crooked, uncertain smile in the other’s direction as he clicks his seatbelt in place and sits back to rest against the comforting leather seat. “He was really excited, and his teacher seems like a nice lady. It’s just me, that’s all.”

The mention of the boy’s teacher almost causes Jean to jam his foot onto the brake; thankfully, he catches himself just in time and avoids the impulse with a visible grimace. “Wait, “lady”? Shit, which teacher did he get? Tell me it wasn’t Bungee Zoe or whatever her name was...”

A look of incredulity crosses over his freckled face. “Bungee Zoe…? There’s a teacher named _Bungee?_ ”

“I don’t remember, but it was something like that. Point is, she’s Levi’s friend-with-coffee-benefits, or something; I really don’t get it. He was here earlier when you were dropping Nico off.”

Marco’s warm brown eye widens in intrigue. “You ran into your boss at a _preschool_? You’re kidding!”

“I told you some otherworldly being is out for my blood.” Jean shrugs his shoulders again, pulling out of the parking lot and slipping on a pair of sunglasses at the stop sign. “But yeah. We didn’t say much—he never really does. He was bringing her Starbucks… Anyway, so Nico doesn’t have the Bungee lady?”

“No, Jean, he doesn’t have the 'Bungee lady.” This name-butchering earns him an airy chuckle from Marco, however, and the familiar sound is enough to elicit a tiny, twitchy grin on Jean’s face. Marco Bodt has to have the most infectious smile, he swears to god, and it drives him absolutely insane. “His teacher’s name is Ms. Ral. She seemed like a really sweet girl—really young, too. I think she’ll be a good teacher for him…” His fingers lift suddenly to rest on his chin as he rubs it in thought. “Y’know, I think their buddy class might have been Ms. Zoe’s—that name sounds kind of familiar. The last name, anyway. I don’t think her first name is Bungee though.”

“Oh, shut up.”

The briefest moment of silence linger between the two before they both burst into a fitful laughter, Jean’s boisterous and hearty and Marco’s airy and light; the sudden jollity almost drives the Cooper off the road, but Jean recollects himself in enough time to jerk the wheel back in the opposite direction and get back in the lane. “Something’s… _Ehah_ … Something’s definitely wrong with us, Marco. We’re seriously screwed up in the head.”

“I don’t think so.” Marco grins wider, all remnants of prior anxiety diminished in favor of elation. “I think everyone’s kind of 'screwed up in the head'. That’s just how people are. You’re kinda _off_ , yeah, but…”

“Hey, be careful or I’ll off _you_.” Jean’s smirk mimics that of his lover, and as they pull out onto the highway, he cannot help but forget his previous fretting as well. It seems so clichéd, and were Jean to chronicle his life in an autobiography, he would likely describe his romance with Marco as precisely that—stupid and clichéd beyond all get out. They haven’t seriously fought much at all—they disagree on plenty of topics, from dinner plans to the atrocious wallpaper in the living room, yet neither party is especially stubborn regarding their opinions on such things (in other words, Marco usually winds up either giving in or dismissing it and averting the topic [generally the latter, much to Jean’s annoyance; he truly despises the manner in which the Bodts manipulate him]). Why, yes—in the nonexistent autobiography of Jean Kirschstein, entitled “The Life of a High-School Horseface” (for the accursed nickname came about his sophomore year of high school), the chapter or so that concerns Marco and this shitfest of a summer he has endured with Nico will— _holy effing hell focus on the road! Focus—focus._ Alright. Smoothly avoided a collision with the railing alongside the freeway. Hell to the yes.

If only he could say the same about Marco, for his lover seems all too petrified by Jean’s distracted driving for coherent word or action; instead, his freckled companion clutches the thigh portion of his pants leg and leans back further against the leather of his seat, anxiously fixating his stare on Jean’s hands, as if he has every intention of yanking the wheel back in the event that Jean loses focus again.

Pshhhhh, honestly—Marco could stand to have a little more faith in him. He’s not gonna crash—he’s only been in two accidents since he got his license at seventeen. Only twice.

(That’s nothing compared to Connie).

Luckily, the pancake house isn’t too far from the school, and it isn’t long before Jean pulls into a parking space, tugs the key from its slot, and turns to face his lover. “We’re here.”

“Y-Yeah… Eheh…” Marco swallows, chuckling in a giddy, delirious manner as he unbuckles the seatbelt with trembling fingers. “So… Is that why you don’t have a car?”

“Hm? Whaddaya mean by that?” Jean’s lower lip pooches out a little. “It’s not like I crashed your tiny-ass car. It wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“Jean, you started swearing in French at the car in front of us.”

“My grandma could drive faster, and she’s _dead_.”

The expression on Marco’s face softens, if only slightly, as he clambers out of the car with legs of jelly; Jean mimics him in this respect, though mostly because his legs had spent the duration of that drive struggling to reach the pedals, since Marco is taller and the seat adjustment bar melted last summer from too much sun exposure (and, as such, does not work anymore—damn that Marco; there are certain things to be frugal about and this is not one of them). “Anyway, Jean, let’s just go in and eat, huh? I never get to sit down and just… eat _food_ with you anymore; it’ll be nice.”

… That sweet motherfricker. It’s enough to make him nauseous, the bastard, but even Jean cannot will down the faint blush that tinges his cheeks a healthy pink hue. Marco knows just what to say, it seems, to make his heart ricochet off of the inside of his ribcage, and maybe it’s just the sunlight fiddling with his eyes, but something in Marco’s gaze appears even more adoring than usual—and, frankly, Jean didn’t think that was physically possible. After all, Marco Bodt has mastered the art of expression with his visible eye, and he casts a rather friendly stare upon almost everyone that he’s acquainted with (and plenty more with whom he isn’t), yet there’s a certain quality in the look that he saves for Jean and Jean only. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something incredibly unique about it—and it has suddenly increased tenfold as Marco peers sidelong at his boyfriend.

Marco… Marco really _has_ fallen pretty hard, hasn’t he?

That, or he finds Jean repulsively smelly, and just doesn’t want to say anything.

He hopes dearly that this is not the case (but he gives his shoulder a quick sniff nonetheless).

“Jean…?” His dark eyebrow rises in curiosity, and his teeth poke out over his lower lip as he bites back a little fit of chuckles. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, nothing. Let’s go down some pancakes.”

~w~w~w~

The two spend the remainder of the day in each other’s company.

Even Jean can’t deny that he thoroughly enjoyed every second they spent together today; it was far from one of those dates where one wants little more than to return home and lock himself in his bedroom for a lovely evening of solitude.  No—this date is, much to his surprise, entirely pleasant, to the point where Jean flinches on occasion with the expectation of something horrible to befall him at any given moment—a hungry bear, Eren Jaeger, a pigeon—anything to turn this romantic outing sour. Yet, apart from the encasing heat cast by the blazing sun above, there is little to complain about.

(Well, Jean could probably find something to complain about, but that takes far too much effort for his tastes).

“That was really fun, Jean…” Marco’s uncovered eye glances over in Jean’s direction, fixing itself upon the younger man’s face and lingering there for a moment in contemplation. “It was nice, actually spending time with you today. Thanks.”

A faint crimson rises in Jean’s cheeks and ears, though he makes no effort to will down his romantic discomfort this time; besides, it’s so damned hot outside that Marco probably doesn’t even notice (and, frankly, at this point in their relationship, he is mostly unconcerned with such things anyway. If he wants to walk around looking like a can of Coca-Cola in heat after being slapped repeatedly in the face, then damn it all, that’s exactly what he’s gonna do). “You’re such a sissy. Geez…”

The two sit together on a bench in the nearby park, relishing the company of the other as time ticks past—it’s about an hour from three o’clock, when Marco will have to leave for work and Jean will have to drive out to get Nico (which Marco outright objected to after witnessing Jean’s mega-rad skills behind the wheel of the Cooper, but there’s little he can do about it at this point—in other words, score one for Jean). Jean’s head leans down against Marco’s, temple pressing into the other’s jaw as his eyes slip shut in relaxation; their hands snake together in front of them for a few minutes, though Marco pulls his away out of mild aversion (frankly, it’s the middle of the afternoon in August, and romance comes second to sweat discomfort).

The two sit as such, silently watching dogs and families and young couples stroll past as they occupy their thoughts with a rare, short-lived serenity. In Jean’s pocket, a brief humming resounds, and as he reaches down to retrieve his phone, he sits upright, repositioning himself in a manner that lessens the sweat passing between their bodies.

“Who are you texting?” Marco inquires, peering over at his lover with a look of mild curiosity.

“Legout.”

“… What?”

“I change Armin’s name in my phone every week. This week, he’s Legout. The first time, he was Double-A. Last week, he was Life Arlert… You get it.”

Marco’s left eyebrow lifts curiously, though he says no more on the matter, and instead returns to contently eyeing the vivid green park life around them. “Hey, mind if I text something to Armin real quick?”

“Sure. Knock yourself out.”

Tossing his phone into Marco’s lap, Jean slides further down Marco’s side, letting his face smash up against the older man’s clothed ribcage as he attempts to surpass his boredom. Sitting quietly in the park is nice and all, but… Well, fuck it, it’s not nice at all; in fact, it’s lackluster as all get-out. It’s hot and it’s noisy and it smells like BO (but that’s probably just Marco, since he’s right below the other’s underarms). Jean wants little more than to return home before he has to pick up Marco’s little terror of a son, but somehow he sees his time at home being relatively short-lived (though they both have to change after a day spent in the blistering summer sun, so they’ll probably have ten minutes or so to spare before he has to fret about picking up Nico).

“Jean?”

“Yeah?”

Marco’s earnest chestnut eye falls upon Jean’s face for a moment, glancing along his jaw, up his face, toward his hazel irises… “… U-Uh… You make me happy… Err… You know?”

“Mhmm…?” Well, this is hella awkward; he’s not totally sure why, but something about the way Marco is looking at him is slightly concerning. “The feeling’s mutual, I guess…?”

“What I mean is… Well…” Marco clears his throat, searching Jean’s eyes once again, staring him down, clearly seeking some sort of sign or emotion or _something_ —Jean remains entirely oblivious of the motives behind Marco’s sudden behavioral shift. The freckled man chances a tiny, crooked smile, sincere and warm, but uncertain all the same. “Have you ever… Gosh, how do I put this? I sound so stupid, aghhh…” Jean’s eyes flicker down toward the other’s hands—they fidget uncontrollably with the phone. “—we need to talk about what we plan on doing from here on out… Concerning us—do you get what I’m saying?”

Jean’s eyes widen in alarm, and for a brief second, his tongue grows leaden with uncertainty. What… What is Marco saying? He dearly hopes that this isn’t some sort of precursor to “popping the question”, because if it is, then _what a way to fuck it up_. Furthermore, that’s the last thing Jean wants to worry about right now—does Marco genuinely believe that he can commit like that on top of committing to school _and_ committing to Nico? “Are you trying to propose or something? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like. And if you are, you’re doing an awful job of it.”

“Wha—no, no, that’s not it.” A distressed, heavy blush glows beneath his dark, freckled cheeks. “I just… I feel like it’s something we need to discuss. I don’t want to sit around and talk about it all day either, but we need to establish some bases, here.”

“What is there to discuss?” Jean’s voice rises in this moment of fright; he catches himself, however, and utters a quick apology, shrinking back a little into his seat on the other side of the bench. “I mean, I’m not ready to commit as a legal guardian, or a legal husband, or whatever the hell that would make me. I have school to worry about, and my job, and all this other crap… What else do we need to talk about?”

“… Nothing, Jean. Nevemind.”

The disappointment that lingers in Marco’s tone is plenty evident—Jean’s chest gives a little twinge at the painful sound—but there is little more that either party can do at this point, so they both return to opposite ends of the bench; Marco busies himself with the touchpad keys of Jean’s phone, finishing up his text to Armin while trying to recollect his thoughts.

Maybe Jean is in the wrong here. Maybe. But by bringing up all of these life-changing subjects—marriage, parenthood, settling down—Jean is just a little overwhelmed. Just a little. Okay, a _lot_ overwhelmed. Consumed by the everlasting plague of uncertainty. Perhaps no greater disease exists, neither physically nor mentally, then the ever-consuming disease of doubt, gnawing away at his sanity bit by bit…

He really _ought_ to write a book.

He’ll have to jot that metaphor down later, if Marco ever gives him back his phone—fucking _hell_ …

He’s been swearing like a sailor today—guess it’s just been one of those days. Mehhh.

“Hey, Freckle-face…” Jean chances a tiny smile, lifts his arm out ahead of him, and waves his fingers back a few times, revealing his desire for the returning of his phone. “Wanna give me my cell back? Or are you too busy sending Armin selfies?”

“Sorry! Here, go ahead.” With a small, albeit somewhat guilty smile, Marco hands the phone back to Jean and leans against the back of the bench, inhaling deeply before gazing idly at his boyfriend. Something is bothering Marco, and nothing drives Jean much nuttier than not knowing what’s under his lover’s skin (save for some muscle, chub, and bone). Ah well—he’ll have to inquire about that later. For now, Marco just sits, admiring his lover from afar with an affectionate, albeit discouraged, half-lidded eye; his fingers settle upon his thighs and tap a few times, idly ghosting over his pockets and letting his thoughts drift.

Curiously creasing his brow, Jean unlocks the phone and pulls up his conversation with Armin, glancing over the last few texts in search of those sent by Marco.

_Jean: hey you feeling okay? last night was kinda crazy_

_Armin Arlert (Legout): I’m alright. I woke up with a pretty bad headache though…_

_Jean: surprised you didn’t wake up with worse_

_Jean: those old folks can sure hold their liquor_

_Jean: that was some killer vodka_

_Armin Arlert (Legout): I don’t remember much… Nothing bad happened, did it?_

_Jean: Hey Armin! This is Marco! Do you think you could drive Jean to Trost Rose later?_

_Armin Arlert (Legout): Trost Rose?_

_Jean: Nico’s Preschool. It’s not too far from our house—about ten minutes, if traffic is normal._

_Armin Arlert (Legout): Oh, um… What time?_

_Jean: Around three?_

Jean’s eyes widen in horror—this is the end of the string of messages, meaning that Armin has yet to deny such a preposterous request; there’s still a chance, but that doesn’t make its occurrence any more or less forgivable. “Marco, tell me you didn’t…”

“I did.”

~w~w~w~

“Y’know, Armin…” Jean begins, shifting the weight on his bottom as he settles deeper into the leather shotgun seat of Armin’s smart car; his arms fold across his chest as he glares sidelong at the shorter blond male sitting in the adjacent seat. “ _This_ is why Connie took your lunch money in high school.”

“Because I do favors for my friends?”

“Because you’re a fucking _pushover_.”

‘Tis true, Jean must admit. Armin Arlert—the Blond Bozo—Double-A himself—whatever nickname suits him in this moment of deceit, is pretty much the biggest pushover of any man he has met (and, placing Marco under consideration, this is a most impressive feat). Why, Jean bets he could reach over, prod Armin’s shoulder with his pinky, and the shorter man would just sort of… _topple over_ (and given the fact that the window is presently rolled all the way down, he would probably tumble out of the car, hit the road head-first, and roll alongside the vehicle on his way to the preschool—the image provokes a snorted snicker from Jean). He’s just that much of a pushover. He has reached the push, and will henceforth proceed to slide over it like an overzealous penguin. Like the pushover that he is.

That bleepin’ pushover.

The expression on Armin’s face is relatively unappreciative, though despite his frown he says nothing on the matter and instead refocuses his eyes on the road. “Marco asked me to drive…”

 “I know. _That’s_ why you’re a pushover.”

Armin’s frown deepens, if only slightly, as he turns the corner and glances out along the stretch of road ahead of them. Licking his chapped mouth, the blond clears his throat, uttering a little mumble, muffled by his barely-parted lips; he speaks just loudly enough for Jean’s ears. “… At least _I_ can drive.”

… Holy hell.

Did Armin just fucking… _sass_ him? While _sober?_

That’s it; this is going in the autobiography.

“You’re kind of a bitch, you know that?”

To this, Armin has nothing to say; instead, he refocuses his attention on the neighborhood street, wide blue eyes peeled for any potential signs or pedestrians—his overly-emphatic mannerisms only mock Jean’s driving (in)capabilities further. Damned _Armin_. “What street is the school on again? Oakwood?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

A small sigh slips past Armin’s lips at the other man’s obduracy. As they roll up to a stop sign, he turns to face his companion with a look of wholehearted seriousness, frown deepening as he meets those narrowed hazel eyes with his own. “Jean, if I don’t know, then we can’t pick him up. Please just tell me.”

“… So?” Tearing his gaze away from Armin’s, Jean sinks further down into the seat, wincing as the seatbelt digs uncomfortably into his exposed collarbone. “See if I care.”

“… Is this still about my beating you in Uno last week?” 

“Wha—no!” Jean shakes his head adamantly, glare intensifying. “You think I’d let a card game get me that riled up?”

“Well…”

“If you respond to that, I’m pulling the handle off this door and beating you with it. To death. Ever heard music by the Smashing Pumpkins? I haven’t either, but that’ll be your head. Like a pumpkin. Squashed... _Shit_ , that wasn’t supposed to be a pun.”

To say that Jean has suffered mental (and, consequently, emotional) turmoil for far too long is a drastic understatement, for why else would he babble on in such a ridiculous manner (particularly on the subject of 90s band names, for crying out loud). Perhaps all he needs is a vacation—time away from Marco, from Nico, from Eren, Levi, Connie, Eren, Armin, Eren, Eren Jaegersson, Eren Jaegerbomb, Eren Jae-killed-in-a-freak-accident-involving-a-pot-of-boiling-pasta-and-a-ladle-what-a-joyous-day-time-to-burn-the-body-in-the-fireplace-and-scatter-the-ashes-all-over-Loverboy-Levi’s-office-just-to-spite-him.

“Something is stressing you out. I can tell.” The deep-set frown on Armin’s face morphs to a look of concern, and as he brings his attention back onto the road, his lips part again to speak. “… Do you need to vent again?”

Jean snorts in indignation, but this feeling soon subsides, giving way to a meeker, softer frustration; the fire slips from his eyes, and it isn’t long before the glare subdues as well. “… You sure you wanna hear me whine about this a second time?”

At this, Armin chances a tiny smile, though a look of reluctance lingers still on his mug as he peers quickly over at his friend. “As long as our conversation doesn’t diverge into bra sizes again, then sure.”

“What, not a bust-man?”

“Wha—Jean, please, just get on with i—”

“I’m having a crisis, Arlert. Can we _not_ talk about tits for a second?”

Armin bites back the frustrated growl that looms in his back of his throat, but says no more on the matter as the street labeled “Oakwood Circle” appears in the distance, about ten meters away. “So…” he begins through clenched teeth, forcing a toothy grin that comes off as more of a psychotic bearing of the fangs than anything else (though Jean pays him no mind). “What is it, Jean?”

“—so I knew what I was getting myself into; I mean, I figured that out pretty damn fast when Marco told me he had a son. But I don’t think I can handle being the kid’s legal guardian. I mean, sure, we’ve bonded well and all that shit, but I’m supposed to be held responsible for him, now? We’re cool with each other, but I don’t think he’s gonna look up to me and listen to me if I ever need to scold him or something, and I don’t know if I _can_ scold him, or I might do that too much, and—holy _shit_ , Armin, your face!”

“We’re almost there. If you have more to say, then—”

“Marco wants to get hitched.” Jean swallows. “At least, I think so? I dunno—he didn’t say that outright, but I think he has it on his mind. I mean, it would make things easier, I guess, since what’s his would be mine and whatever. But… I don’t know, I just feel kinda… I don’t know if that’s what I want. Hell, I’m not cut out for this… I told him I wanted to wait until I graduate, at least, but still…”

“So you’re worried about something that won’t happen for _at least_ another _nine months?_ ”

Jean lightly shoves the other’s forearm at his tone of voice. “Well… _yeah_.”

Armin opens his mouth to say something back, though his chance is short-lived, for the road approaches ever-faster, and the car must be turned on a dime to meet its designated path.  As the little vehicle jerks its way along the street, Jean latches onto the edge of his seat, gnashing his teeth together as Armin maneuvers his way around the curb with a shriek of alarm. “Jean—!” he shouts, hopping the curb with the front tire but making the turn in due time and filing back into the lane. “—don’t distract me, please.”

“What? I haven’t done anything.”

This is the last straw for the shorter blond, for as he whips is head around to glare at Jean, his eyes glower a wide, infuriated sapphire. _“You’re driving me crazy!_ If you have another _nine months_ to get used to it, then damn it—” a cough, “Jean—a-aahh!” The vehicle swerves suddenly, lurching over to the side of the road and rolling atop the curb again; Armin and Jean jerk to the left at the sudden motion, the former clutching at his chest and the latter clinging tighter to the material of his seat.

“Armin, what the fuck? What’re you—Oh god!” Jean’s eyes widen as they fall upon Armin at last. “Not gonna lie, you look possessed or something. What’s wrong with—oh, shit, are you—?”

His companion gasps and wheezes, hands scrambling at his belt in a vain effort to reach something in his back pocket; Jean unbuckles his seatbelt and does the same to Armin’s, pushing the blond over for easier access to his… erm, bottom (oh fucking _hell_ , this is awkward…)—Armin’s head, with its contorted expression and its bluish tint, lashes out to the side at the sudden force from Jean’s hands and shoves the upper half of his body out of the open window to dangle out. Bearing a frightened grimace, Jean slips a finger into the back pocket and tugs it loose, removing an inhaler from its depths and fumbling with it in his hands. “How the _hell_ does this thing work?! Armin, get back in the car, you idiot! What are you doing?! Oh god, oh _god_ , _breathe_ , damn you!—”

“Jea—aahhaa—” Armin’s neck cranes backward, eyes large and fixated upon the inhaler in Jean’s hand as his wheezing grows more labored—he flings an arm out suddenly, not bothering to readjust his position; his fingers enclose around the small white object and hurriedly pull it back toward his mouth.

“Don’t die!”

“I—” Pumping the inhaler once more, Armin flops over the side of the smart car as his upper body continues to dangle out of the window, chest heaving as the ability to fully breathe returns to him. When he speaks once more, his voice quivers, accompanied by a string of pants and occasional coughs as he struggles to normalize his voice. “Jean… hahh… S-Sorry, about that… I don’t know what came over me… h-hah… I’m sorry.”

Jean’s eyes stare widely at the blond as he scrambles back into the car; Armin rolls the window up and turns to peer at the taller man with an apologetic, warm gaze, though Jean can only respond flatly, as he recollects his thoughts—

“This is what happens when you swear, Armin.”

~w~w~w~

“So…” Armin begins, locking the car as they step out into the parking lot of the preschool. “… Where’s his classroom?”

“Beats me.” With a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders, Jean follows the shorter man out into the open; he crosses the road alongside Armin and shoves his hands into his pants pockets before speaking once again. “But Marco didn’t spend a really long time in the building, so it can’t be too far back. Besides, I know his teacher’s name, so it shouldn’t be hard to find the room.”

“… Right…” Armin mutters beside him, agreeing—though not without a twinge of disbelief lingering in his voice. Well, maybe more than a twinge—more of a not-so-subtle _flood_ , really. The ever-consuming flood of Armin Arlert. Yep. That’s what it is. And with any luck, it’ll pass in time without drowning Jean in its tepid waters.

(Chances are, Armin Arlert will be the death of him).

Clenching his fingers in his pockets, Jean slips into the building after Armin, peering around the interior of the grand preschool. Okay, even he can’t deny that Marco was right about its extravagance—despite being little more than a play center for children, Trost Rose is far from a dingy, prison-like school building. With its high, painted ceilings and ornately decorated walls, it’s miles above the expectation that Jean held before walking in (his own preschool was like a mafia-run asylum, from his best recollection—nothing more than groupings of boys who tormented everyone during gym and girls who couldn’t stop giggling like maddened psychopaths).

Ahh, _good_ times.

In all seriousness, though, Jean would pay money to go here _nowadays_. As an adult. It’s just that nice. (Besides, he would take the joys of art and storytime over the Quantum Algorithms class he’ll wind up taking [for the second time] this upcoming semester).

But he digresses. Back to finding Ms. Ral’s room.

Trailing closely behind the shorter blond, Jean lets his eyes settle in on the row of doors approaching on the left—sure enough, as he had guessed, each tall wooden door is labeled with cut-out bubble letters of the respective teacher’s name. Well, this should prove easy enough, then. Let’s see… Mr. Shulz, Mr. Gin, Ms. Zoe… Ah! Ms. Ral.

Here goes nothing.

“I’ll wait out here,” Armin states with a small smile. “I think you should be the one to pick him up.”

“What…? Oh, uh, sure, Armin. Whatever.” Jean hardly sees the point in that, but he daren’t argue further with the other male, for to bicker with Armin is to throw away all hope of returning home alive. “Be back in a minute.”

With this, Jean steps across the hall and over to the door, where a number of parents have already picked up their children; as such, he finds himself dodging body upon body of (significantly older) adults as he maneuvers his way into the classroom.

Struggle number one: overcome.

His eyes fall at last upon the bright ginger head of hair resting beside the door; a short woman stands there, smiling broadly, bearing a badge on her blouse labeled with “Ms. Petra Ral” engraved in large gold letters. Aha, he does believe he has properly identified the teacher in question. Sherlock Kirschstein strikes again—you know what, no; that name combination doesn’t even _sound_ good, so screw it (though he supposes Doctor Armin Watson isn’t horrible—then there’s Eren Moriarty, but that would make Eren his equal, so fuck that [Eren’s more of a Moran, he supposes, or a Mycroft, with a side of—])

“Sir?”

A light voice greets his ears and thusly snaps him from his pointless train of thought; Petra Ral’s hazel eyes stare directly up at him. “Are you here to pick somebody up?”

A faint scarlet rises to his face; she’s older than he is, sure, but she’s _awfully_ cute, with those large citrine irises and her short stature… He’s not interested, but it’s a wonder that Levi isn’t dating _this_ lovely woman instead of that apparent nutjob next door (assuming Levi is actually dating her—Jean isn’t convinced that _Levi_ even knows [nevermind the fact that he denies dating Hanji anyway—Jean’s mind is selective in romantic matters, really]). Nevertheless, he straightens up and puts on a small smile, glancing around the room in search of his so—his _lover’s_ son. They’re not at that point, and even so, he’s not sure that the kid would even consider him a full-fledged dad. “I’m here to pick up Nicolas Bodt. Y’know—average height, black hair, freckles…?”

“Oh! You must be Jean, right?” The smile in her eyes does not flicker; Jean will never understand how so many people in this town can be so unchangeably _cheery_ 24/7. “Mr. Bodt mentioned you earlier.”

“Oh?”

“He told me you would be picking Nico up.” Her hand rises suddenly, delicate and limber, to point a finger toward the door, motioning to the hall outside. “He left to go to the bathroom about ten minutes ago. I was going to go check on him soon if he didn’t come out, though, the poor thing… You might want to go make sure he’s alright in there.”

Oh _god._

He doesn’t even want to _think_ about what would happen if he went into the bathroom to figure out what’s wrong with Nico. Ulghhh.

Willing down the shudder that ripples his skin, he nods his head and thanks her before stepping back out into the hallway, where Armin stands in waiting. “Wouldn’t you know it? The kid’s stuck in the bathroom.”

Armin’s eyebrows rise in sympathy, though a stifled smile twitches at the corners of his lips. “Sorry, Jean. I’ll stay here until you get back. The bathroom’s right there.” His hand motions toward a row of doors lining the opposite side of the hall, just a bit further down than Ms. Ral’s classroom, each labeled with signs that convey their designated purposes (the first is just a janitorial closet, but the second is the girls’ restroom, and the third is the boys’). “Good luck.”

“Why can’t you come with me?”

“I’m still recovering from my asthma.”

“… You really _are_ kind of an aaaa—” he catches himself, noting the kids, “—hole, aren’t you?”

After witnessing the little half-shoulder shrug that Armin gives in response, Jean rolls his eyes and retreats down the hall, dodging rampant children and shouting adults and the general folly that accompanies the departure from school. It’ll be miraculous if Nico makes it out of the bathroom and back to the classroom without being trampled by these wild kiddies running about.

Come to think of it, it wouldn’t be too difficult to get swept away and lost in this crowd…

Hm.

Well, he would hope that Nico would be more adept than that, but he _is_ related to Marco, so there’s really no telling.

After maneuvering his way through the groupings of wild youngsters, Jean clenches the bathroom door handle in his fingers with a death grip, tugging on it with a surprising lack of forcefulness—funny, he was expecting it to be _locked_. Nico must get _that_ little quirk from his father as well… Hmph.

“Kid? You in here?” Jean peers inside, flipping the light switch on and glancing around the interior of the bathroom; it’s a one-person restroom (no stalls, which makes his job easier) with a toilet and a little sink and—

“Jean…?” Armin’s voice pipes up from behind him, signifying the other’s compliance to follow him regardless of his prior teasing. “What’s wrong? You look horrified…” A pause. “Is it Nico?”

His voice is barely perceptible above the droning of surrounding children. “He’s gone…”

“Wh—”

“Armin—!” Jean whips around suddenly, meeting Armin’s wide eyes with his own look of uncertainty—of _fright_.

“He’s _not here_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Legout and Horseface ever find Nico? How is all of this "that damn Jaeger's fault"? Will Jean ever become a realized parent? These questions and more will be answered in the next chapter, so stay tuned. Expect it sometime in the next two weeks or so. And a gigantic thank you to everyone who has followed this story up to this point. It's nearing its end, and I don't think I could ever have gotten this far without all of you. You're my motivation, so please stay stellar and I'll see you in the next update! c:
> 
> (As always, credit to Carlile (http://gokuderaa.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this work).


	6. Chapter 6

“Jean, just calm down—”

Needless to say, Jean’s worry has only escalated to the point of hysteria—though, truly, who can blame him? The four-year-old son of his boyfriend is _nowhere_ to be found, in a building that is supposed to be _structured_ and _safe_ , where _no such things_ are _ever_ supposed to happen. It’s like trying to find a coconut in England, which is impossible, save for a few freak migrations—and Jean’s pretty damn certain that Nico wasn’t carried off by an African Swallow, because in order to maintain air-speed velocity, and taking into account Nico’s probably weight—

… This is _really_ hardly the time.

About ten minutes have passed since the realization that Nico is nowhere to be found—in said span of time, Petra has nervously twiddled her thumbs, Jean has punched a few walls and undoubtedly broken his right hand in the process, and Armin has scrambled to stop Jean from punching so many walls, before they have yet another problem on their hands (all jokes aside). The jumbled stampede of children has mostly subsided, save for the occasional parent showing up late to pick up their offspring—despite this diminishing crowd, however, Nico has yet to be seen.

Jean’s sanity has since gone missing as well, but he hasn’t the time to fret about finding _that_ back.

“Okay,” Jean begins, folding his arms tighter across his chest as he chances a swift glance at the short blond beside him. “School’s been out for ten minutes. Can I call the police yet?”

Bearing a mild grimace, Armin takes a chance and reaches out to place a hand on Jean’s shoulder; it is immediately shrugged off, met with a glare akin to that of a rabid jackal. “Why don’t we look around for him first? He might have just gotten lost. And I’m sure there’s an officer nearby—schools usually have a security guard on duty, don’t they?”

“We do.” Petra nods her head once, absently tugging at the end of her sleeve as her eyes scan the expanse of hallway out ahead of them. “Officer Pixis should be around here somewhere—let me go find him.”

With that, Ms. Ral spins on her heels and proceeds swiftly down the hall, disappearing behind a corner with a look of determination on her face.

“Armin, you stay here.” Jean whips out his phone and unlocks it with a trembling thumb. “If he comes back, then we need to know, stat. My phone has plenty of battery left, so just call me up if you find him. Capiche?”

Armin does not respond immediately, however—instead, his eyes grow mildly distant, gazing idly along the opposite wall, from the boy’s bathroom to the girl’s, down to the janitorial closet, and back over to Jean’s face. “Hey…” he starts, speaking slowly as his thoughts scramble in search of a logical solution to this mystery. “… Jean… did you check—”

“I don’t have time for this!” The sour churning in Jean’s gut only intensifies as the circumstances fall harder upon his shoulders. Poor Nicolas is missing—potentially lost in the sea of children, trampled, betrayed by his power-hungry long-lost brother… Or, perhaps far worse—stuck in a tank, surrounded by moronic fish obsessed with bubbles and grime and—oh _hell_ , is this what living with a child has done to his brain? Must he think in Disney references from here on out? He needs to go through their movie collection and make some changes. Yikes. “I need to find him before this gets any worse…”

“Jean, please—”

“Siri!” Jean’s voice bellows out, drowning out Armin once again as he holds his phone to near his lips in a frenzied effort to make better this situation. “Get me Amber Alert!”

“ _Calling Armin Arlert_.”

“Wha— _fuckin’—!_ ” Hastily, he cancels the call and releases a frustrated groan, cupping a hand anxiously around his mouth—he pauses briefly in his breakdown to think for a moment, trying to calm his nerves and collect his thoughts.

Oh, god, Marco’s going to _kill_ him.

No, stop—that’s the least of his concerns at this point. Right now, he need only concern himself with finding Nico and ensuring his safety from here on out. But, _oh_ , does he wish the trembling in his legs would stop—as if on cue, his knees give out suddenly, and he slides down the wall and onto his bottom. His lips part, still veiled beneath his fingers, and little breaths, erratic and painful, slip from his mouth—his body shudders again, and a sudden sob rips forth from his constricting throat—no tears fall, no further utterances sneak out, but the feeling of panic does not subside.

Nicolas Bodt, child of—no, _his_ child, _his_ responsibility, is gone.

And even if it’s no fault of his, the heavy burden of guilt churns like liquid lead in his stomach.

His legs curl up to his chest as he peers despondently over at Armin, who has since left his side to approach the women’s restroom, mostly out of curiosity. Jean opens his mouth again, uncovering it for a moment to prevent his hand from muffling his hoarse voice too much.

“Armin… Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I’m just checking, in case Nico got confused.” Armin lightly rolls his eyes, releasing a tiny sigh before pulling on the handle and peering inside with a mild blush rising upon his cheeks. “Hello? Nicolas?”

Whatever sliver of hope had ignited in Jean’s chest soon flickers out as Armin’s echoing voice is met by utter silence. They should have known it would be too good to be true—not that Jean ever assumed that Nico would be in the girl’s bathroom for _half an hour_ anyway, because that’s just flat-out ridiculous, but anyway—life just doesn’t work out that way. Is this the universe’s final ploy? Has the time come for Jean to learn some great life lesson—by the loss of his child, no less? Such otherworldly forces can be cruel, yes, but this is taking it too far! He’s no Daedalus—no Lear! Sure, Jean has made his fair share of mistakes, but he hardly believes himself deserving of this! Oh, please, whatever beings might exist up there, or down below, or maybe even inside his head—please let this misery end!

Well, maybe this misery _would_ end, if Jean could get up off of his lazy ass and actually _look_ for Nico.

Since when have his inner thoughts been so _sassy?_

It must be the presence of Armin—the little blond sass-master is starting to have a bad influence on him.

“Lemme out!”

And now he’s hearing things. Fan-fucking-tastic. What, is he going to lose his mind, now? Will he slowly slip further into the deepest delves of madness, with nobody but his thoughts and _Armin_ to keep him company (because Marco sure as _hell_ isn’t maintaining their relationship after this)? It seems a fate worse than death—worse than amnesia (which, at the present time, sounds rather appealing—it would certainly solve his guilt problem, if nothing else). Forever haunted by the voice of the child that he lost in a freaking _school_.

“Hey!”

… He _is_ hearing things… _right?_

That would be too easy… If…

…

… Oh, there’s no way in _hell_ …

“Nicolas? Is that you?” Armin calls out, cupping a hand to the side of his lips in effort to elevate his voice. “Where are you?”

“I’m behind a door! I can’t find a light!”

Well, if nothing else, this validates the idea that Jean is, in fact, still hanging onto his sanity by a thread. He supposes he can be thankful for that much. Nonetheless, the moment that the boy’s confused voice rings out into the air, Jean scrambles to his feet and practically throws himself back against the wall; his eyes, wide and frantic, skim over the various doors in the hallway in a desperate effort to prove to himself that Nico is, in fact, fully alive and well.

A look of relief floods over Armin’s face (though the lucky fellow hardly seemed deterred by the prospect of Nico’s disappearance, something that Jean cannot help but envy [and, to a certain degree, question]). “Keep talking, Nico. We’ll come let you out in a minute.”

“Uncle Armin, what are you doing here? You don’t go to preschool!”

 _Now’s not the time to be cute, kid._ Rolling his eyes, Jean takes a careful step forward, listening attentively with a newfound desperation to locate the four-year-old troublemaker. “Come on, Nico, you blab when we _aren’t_ trying to find you… Do you know which door?”

“Jean?” Yet again, the child’s voice reaches his ears, stifled and quivering slightly, but present all the same. “Um, it’s big, and it has a sign on it, but I couldn’t read it…”

“Here!” Armin utters, stepping swiftly forward from his spot by the girl’s restroom; his palm settles upon the handle of the janitorial closet, giving it a gentle tug—it’s not locked, at least, so if this is, indeed, the designated door, then it makes their lives all the easier. “Nico?” He pulls the door all the way open and peers inside, though not before Jean can rush forth and latch onto the door frame with a sense of urgency. Despite the faint glow that seeps in from the hallway ceiling lights, it’s still impossibly dark in this small space; hurriedly, Jean removes the smartphone from his back pocket, sliding the lock and directing an app-powered flashlight in the general direction of the closet.

“Jean, it smells weird in here…” Nico whines out, poking his head into the noticeable rays of light that gleam from outside. “And the door wouldn’t open…”

Armin raises an eyebrow at him, though the smile on his mouth is evident enough. “… Why were you in the closet in the first place?”

The kid’s wide hazel eyes flit over to Armin for a moment, and he chances a toothy smile as each pair of eyes settles in on him. “I was playing hide an’ seek with Bianka, but she never came to find me.”

“So you lied to Ms. Ral?”

“… I just didn’t wan’ her to find me super easy…”

It’s pretty safe to assume that Jean has never felt a rush of relief as heavy as this—and, for once, he doesn’t care how pathetic he looks or how mushy it sounds; when Nico walks out of the closet and into the hall, he hardly has a few seconds to recollect himself before Jean drops to his level and pulls him into a snug hold.

“Jean, you’re squishing me…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Nevertheless, his grip on the boy only tightens. Nico is here—he’s safe—and Jean has ever been happier. It’s a strange feeling—nothing like any sort of joy or relief he has ever experienced, but as he hugs the child to his chest and breathes easy, he knows that it’s probably the result of something utterly and embarrassingly clichéd, like love and family and all that tear-jerker Disney stuff. But he hardly cares at this point—his son is alright– in trouble, but alright.

As if on some sort of sick cue, Jean’s phone suddenly blares out from his hand, and as he relinquishes his hold on Nico, he collapses backwards and leans up against the wall, mind and body still struggling to fully process the fact that Nico is, indeed, here and well after fifteen minutes of utter horror. At last, he musters up the effort to raise the phone to his ear—Marco’s voice instantly greets his senses. “Hey, Marco…”

“Hi, Jean. Sorry, just… Aha, you picked up Nico, right? Is he alright? Did he have a good day at school?”

“… U-Uh…” Jean’s voice catches in his throat, still raspy as his body recovers from his prior panic attack. “Yeah… Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“Are you sure, Jean? You sound kind of shaken up…”

In this instance, Jean’s gaze drifts downward, landing at last upon Nico—hopping from his flushed freckled face to his wide, dimpled smile to the innocent elation shimmering in his blue-hazel eyes—and the curdled-milk feeling in his stomach evaporates into something feather-light, something tingly, and though he cannot pinpoint exactly what this sensation is, it’s one of the best feelings he has ever experienced.

“Yeah…” he utters at last, lifting a hand to give Nicolas a quick, firm fist bump. “Everything’s great, actually. Couldn’t be better.”

And, for the first time in a while, that notion is the honest truth.

~w~w~w~

On the following Sunday, Jean decides that he is going to disown Connie Springer.

He doesn’t care that it isn’t technically possible to disown somebody (or something) that does not legally belong to him—Connie’s gettin’ kicked to the curb and thrown out with the rotten turnips. He is, quite literally, going to be dragged outside by his shirt collar, picked up off of the ground, hovered (groveling) over Jean’s booted toe, and punted halfway across town. So long, Connie Springer. Time to live up to your namesake—hope you bounce, ‘cause it’s gonna hurt like hell when you land otherwise.

“Wait, so… let me get this straight…” Connie begins, nibbling on his lower lip in an effort to hold back a fit of obnoxious laughter. “So after Jean hung up on you, he started _crying?_ It’s true, then?”

“Well, according to Nicolas.” Lightly chuckling at the thought, Marco leans back in his chair, peering up at the stage out ahead of them before chancing a quick glance down at his bingo card; he marks B2 with a chip before continuing in a hushed tone. “He was just relieved, I think.”

Jean marks his card as well before subtly flipping them off beneath the tablecloth. “Oh, shut up. I was happy that he was okay, that’s all. Sometimes guys just need a good, manly cry. Nothing wrong with that.”

“No, but Armin said you started _bawling_. For, what, ten minutes?” Sniggering under his breath, Connie glances down at his bingo card as G17 is called out from the stage. Alas, it seems as though none of their three cards have that space; it only figures. Nobody at their table ever wins anything—though this is Marco’s first time coming along, so maybe the freckled fellow will sway their luck? It’s always a possibility—Marco seems to have quite a streak of good luck, in most fields.

“H-Hey, now,” Marco murmurs, tugging lightly on Jean’s shoulder as the younger man makes an attempt to lunge in Connie’s general direction. “Jean, he’s just teasing. Please sit down...”

“Teasing? When I’m done with him, he’ll be _wheezing_.”

With a light roll of his uncovered eye, Marco ushers Jean back into his chair; he utters a tiny sigh and points at Jean’s bingo card with a slightly frustrated expression. “They called O11. Put a marker on it.”

The frown lingers on Jean’s face as his attention shifts from skinning Connie to his game. Huh. Well, one more space and he’ll have Bingo. What are the odds? He won’t win the game, because that would just be too freaking lucky for him, but he’s still faring better than he normally does. Maybe Marco’s luck is rubbing off on him…? Experimentally, he reaches forward and wipes the back of his hand down Marco’s forearm, moving up and down a few times along the sleeve; needless to say, this earns him an incredulous look from his boyfriend, but neither party says anymore on the matter as another number is called. B39. That’s not it either, dammit. Ah well. It was worth a try.

“Bingo!” Marco’s hand shoots up suddenly; his expression shifts from one of confusion to one of joviality as he waves his arm a few times in the air.

Well… Shit, Jean called it.

As the caller walks over to examine the winning card, Marco turns toward Jean and chances a sheepish smile. “Looks like you were pretty close, huh? Sorry, Jean…” A tiny chuckle slips past his lips as the caller announces the validity of his card. “But, hey, at least we live together. We can split the winnings.”

“Marco, the winnings are fifty bucks.”

“… Mm, point taken.” The elderly crowd’s attention shifts from Marco to the caller as each participant clears their card. “Well, if you win the next round, we’ll have a hundred.”

“And if I win, I’ll have more money than both of you.” Connie makes a little gagging motion beside them, sticking his index finger into his mouth and pretending to choke on it. “You’re so mushy it makes me sick.”

 _Not as mushy as your brains,_ Jean thinks with a quick roll of the eyes, and he would have voiced his thoughts (as per usual) had Marco not leaned across at that moment and hooked an arm around Jean’s shoulders, casting his typical cheeky grin in Connie’s direction. “Aw, come on, Connie. We could be a lot worse…” And, determined to prove his point, Marco lowers his lips to Jean’s, stealing a chaste kiss and peering up at Connie out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey,” Jean mutters in protest, placing a firm hand on Marco’s chest and shoving him off. “I’m all for grossing Connie out, but we’re in public.”

“I know…” A light, healthy pink lingers in Marco’s cheeks as he sits back in his own chair once more. “I’m still going to see you after tomorrow, right?”

One of Jean’s eyebrows rises incredulously. “Uh, yeah? Why wouldn’t you?”

Marco shrugs his shoulders, taking a moment to mull over his thoughts before speaking again—in the meantime, the caller shouts out “I44” and he marks his card as needed. “Because you’re starting school again. I can’t imagine being a computer engineering major—you’ll probably be pretty swamped, huh?”

“I’ll live.”

~w~w~w~

“I’ll live”, he’d said.

Never before have such words seemed further from the truth.

Six months pass—February has long since dawned, and the chilly nip in the air is, at long last, beginning to subside. As such, Jean removes the quilt from around his shoulders and lets it slide to the floor, where it crumples and encircles the legs of his desk chair; a minimal shiver jolts along his skin at the sudden coolness, but it’s certainly nothing he won’t get used to after a few minutes of exposure (and if the sweater that he’s wearing isn’t enough to keep him warm, then perhaps they should consider moving nearer the equator—which Jean would be more than happy about, since he’s bent on burning this hideous house to the ground anyway). Nibbling anxiously away at the eraser of his pencil, he curls up a bit more and readjusts the position of the desk lamp, forcing his attention back to the sheet of paper in front of him.

 _How is this supposed to work?_ Jean shouts inwardly, cursing under his breath before flipping his pencil over to erase another incorrect mark he had made. He figured his senior semester of college would be at least a _little_ more manageable, but he supposes that’s what he gets for pursuing such a complex subject—it’s not as if he has ever been especially interested in computer engineering, but it made the most sense at the time and practically guaranteed job stability and money-making, both of which will be incredibly useful if he intends to live out his life with a cameraman-and-news-anchor (though he would have chosen this major regardless).

Either way, whoever came up with such an impossible curriculum needs a good kick to the crotch.

… Actually, perhaps a _few_ good kicks to the crotch would be more appropriate. With an ice skate. A rusty, frozen ice skate. Whoever it was won’t be having kids for a while, regardless. Maybe that’s why Eren’s father disappeared all those years ago, for only somebody as manic as a Jaeger could possibly concoct such a nonsensical course as this.

That would also explain why Eren does not have any blood siblings.

Regardless, the more that Jean’s eyes glance over this sheet of all-but-foreign material, the greater the throbbing in his head becomes. At this point, he must wonder if anybody has _ever_ made it out of this degree program alive (all the while maintaining their sanity), or if, perhaps, everyone else simple steps up onto the stage on the day of graduation and falls dead in the potted flowers by the podium.

“Jean!”

The shrill tone of Nico’s voice jolts Jean out of his distracted state of mind; hardly five seconds pass before the bedroom door is flung open—the knob smashes into the wall, causing Jean to wince at the prospect of forming a hole (thankfully, it does not [this time], but he’ll have to remember to install a doorstop of some sort this weekend).

“Jean!” Nico repeats as he bounds into the room, hurrying over to Jean’s side and tugging at the loose cashmere sleeve that dangles from his elbow; the child stares cheerily up at his older companion’s face, eyes wide and glinting with excitement. “Wanna come outside?”

One of Jean’s eyebrows lifts inquisitively. “Hah…? Why? It’s cold. Like, _really_ _freaking_ cold.”

“Um…” Smile faltering, if only briefly, the boy rocks back and forth on his heels a few times, swaying around dreamily as he speaks. “It’s kinda cold, but it’s gonna be fun, ‘cause Daddy said we’re gonna make s’mores, and he says that you’re pro’lly really _really_ sick of doing homework…” Upon the mentioning of homework, he suddenly perks up again, standing on his tiptoes and pressing the bottom of his nose against the top of the high computer desk, desperately curious to see what Jean is working on. “What’s that?”

With a light roll of the eyes, Jean leans back in his chair and shifts over, leaving just enough room on the seat for Nico to prop himself up and sit beside him; the child does precisely this, bearing his best, toothy grin as he peers across at the large sheet of paper. “It looks funny… Why are you drawing for school? Are you in art?”

At this, Jean cannot help but snort out an animated laugh. “Heh! Are you kidding? Have you ever seen your dad draw? I’m even worse than he is—and _that’s_ saying something.” Jean, Marco, and their so-called “friends” had gotten together this past New Year’s Eve and wound up playing a game of Pictionary—to say that their team _lost as miserably as Connie lost his hair his freshman year_ is the grandest understatement of the year (well, as Connie puts it, his hairline is just “receding”, so he “chose” to shave it, but Jean has his doubts). “Nah, this is for one of my classes in school. I have to make it on a computer, but I try to map it all out on paper first. It helps, sometimes.”

“Oh…” The wonderment in Nico’s voice lingers, though it is soon replaced with a bit of a whine as he reaches across to tug on the fabric of Jean’s sweater again. “Eww! You have something blue on your face…”

“What?”

“Right… there.” His little fingers lift to poke at Jean’s cheek, a bit too hard for the older male’s tastes, but nothing too painful (of course it’s nothing painful. Who the _actual fuck_ gets injured by a five-year-old poking him in the face? A wimp, that’s who. A wimp like Eren. Heh—Eren actually burned his hand on the stovetop this past weekend; Jean has never laughed so hard, doubled over and clutching at his sides as Eren desperately scurried over and _stood inside the freezer_ to soothe the pain. What a loser—everyone knows you aren’t supposed to ice a burn. Needless to say, Connie and Sasha spent the remainder of the night serving up some sick burns, no pun intended). “It’s a blue line.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Jean licks his thumb and rubs it vigorously on the area pointed out by Nico. “Better?”

“Mhmm, you got it.”

“Good…” he murmurs, a wild smirk rising on his face as he lashes out suddenly and wipes his thumb down Nico’s nose; the child recoils and sticks his tongue out in disgust, robustly scrubbing away at his face with the sleeve of his jacket. “Kid, cool it. You’re not gonna get some weird disease just because I got a little spit and ink on you.”

“I won’t turn into a horse?”

The expression on Jean’s face grows all the more deadpan, which only heightens the volume of Nico’s hearty giggles. “Just joking, Jean.”

… This kid seriously needs to quit being so irresistibly adorable—he’s making Jean feel like a sap, and that simply won’t do. With a tiny sigh, he clasps his arms suddenly around Nico’s middle, pulling him awkwardly into his lap and resting his chin a bit too firmly into the top of the child’s scalp. “Gotcha now.”

“Huh? What are you doing?” Pursing his lips, Nicolas squirms restlessly within Jean’s vice grip in an attempt to wriggle free. “Lemme go!”

“Nope.” Jean shrugs and gives a simple shake of the head—hey, Nico can’t torment him anymore if he can’t move his arms and legs, right? If only this worked on Connie… then all of his problems would be solved, more or less. “Hear me out for a minute—then I’ll go burn some s’mores with you. Got it?”

Nico pouts in solemn defeat and nods his head begrudgingly. “You’re annoying…”

“Yeah, yeah, and you’re the bane of my existence. But anyway…” Chancing a swift glance down the hall (the door was left wide open when Nico entered earlier, much to Jean’s discomfort, but he supposes that, if he’s careful enough, there’s no chance of Marco seeing them). As he draws his lower lip beneath his teeth, he unwraps one arm from around Nico’s torso to slip a hand into his pocket, fiddling around with the assortment of items inside its depths (loose change, a gum wrapper, some unused twist-ties from the restaurant) before enclosing his fingers around something at last. “Okay, so I need you to promise me something before I show you this. Okay?”

The child’s dark brows lift inquiringly, though he nods his head nonetheless.

“Keep this a secret from Daddy, got it?”

“What if I accidentally spill some beans?”

Nico’s misunderstanding of the phrase earns a twitchy half-smile from Jean, though the anxious lump in his throat does not allow any further expression of emotion in this moment. “If you spill some beans, then it’s okay… But if you _zip it_ , I’ll buy you _two_ scoops of Mint Chip the next time we get ice cream.”

This is enough to prompt Nicolas’s fingers to rise in a zipping motion across his lips, though the continued giggle that follows contradicts the action almost immediately.

“Okay, awesome. So…” Clearing his throat, Jean quickly peers down the hall one last time before withdrawing his hand from his pocket and holding out a clenched fist. “Stick your hands out, and be careful. If you drop this, or get snot on it or something, your Wii becomes _my_ Wii.”

“But I don’t play Wii…”

“Just put your hands out already!”

Nico obliges begrudgingly, though not without a light roll of the eyes. “Sheesh…”

“Okay… There.”

When Jean’s fist unclenches, a small, cold object lands squarely in Nico’s left palm; as Jean’s larger hand leaves its spot atop the smaller, Nico raises his palms closer to his face for a better look.

“You know what that is, right?”

“It’s a ring…” the boy mutters, quietly turning it over in his fingers a few times. Centered in his palm is a wide platinum band, engraved minimally with thin lines that run along the outer ridge of the ring. Nico closes his hand around it a few times experimentally before his eyes grow melon-sized in a sudden instant of realization. “Oh!”

“Shhh!” Jean hushes him, glancing nervously down the hall again—it remains entirely Marco-less, as it should be. Releasing a gentle sigh of relief, he glances down at the ring and leans his chin down atop Nico’s hair again. “Yep... I, uh…” He swallows.  “I’m gonna ask Marco sometime later this week. But, I wanted to make sure that was okay with you first. It, uh, _better_ be okay with you. This ring wasn’t cheap. I had to sell—”

“Nico? Are you in here?”

Shit, shit, _shit_ , get it back—! Hurriedly, Jean swipes the ring from Nico’s palm and stuffs it into his pocket, blushing a vivid shade of scarlet from his cheeks to the tips of his ears as Marco rounds the corner and appears at the end of the hall. He didn’t see the ring, did he? Surely he didn’t see the ring. The ring is safe in Jean’s pocket. The ring is safe. Ring. The Precious. Not visible. Safe ring. Repeat, the ring is safe with the lint and the change. Alright… Alright. Cool it, Kirschstein. You’ve got this, you devilishly handsome, brilliant, valiant guy, you… You’ve got this.

“But, Jean…”

Nico begins to speak, and out of fear of him blabbing about the foolproof proposal, Jean slaps a hand over the child’s mouth. He doesn’t care how suspicious or downright stupid it looks at this point—he can’t screw this up any more than he probably already has. Thankfully, judging by the warm smile on Marco’s features, the older man has yet to notice Jean’s grave mistake.

(It’s not his fault, really, he tells himself with a crooked grin—a bead of sweat accumulates upon the back of his neck and rolls down the nape, tickling something _awful_ on its excursion along his skin. Jean’s not guilty of anything immoral or despicable—he’s _not_. But… Well, he had been determined to buy a _nice_ ring for Marco, something with the price equivalent of a woman’s ring, since it seems only right [in the jumbled mess that is his knowledge on same-sex couples, at least]. Unfortunately, being a student on a tip-based wage, he couldn’t quite manage to scrounge up enough money on his own, and as such had to resort to selling some _trivial_ items on eBay.

(Well, as long as Marco has no intention of driving anytime soon, he should be off the hook.

(That engine had been a _bitch_ to get out, too—it had taken himself, Reiner, and Annie just to get the heavy thing out of the hood. At two o’clock in the morning.

(It’s been one hell of a week).

At last, after what seems like hours in Jean’s state of panic, Marco appears in the doorway, leaning a shoulder against the frame as his functioning eye settles in on his partner and his child. “Hey… Ready to make s’mores yet?”

“Yeah!” All it takes is an utterance of the sweet confection’s name before Nico bounds up off of Jean’s lap and scrambles past his father’s legs; the eager, rambunctious child slips around the corner and out of sight soon thereafter.

“Y’know, he’s gonna get crazier if you give him sugar.” Jean chances a smirk in the other’s direction, rising from the chair beside the desk and shoving his hands in his pockets, absently fingering the contents with a faint blush. Not yet—when the time comes, he’ll ask, but right now, he needs to stop being a wuss and actually work up the capability to speak at all. “We’ll be dead by the end of the evening.”

At Jean’s strange implication, Marco only chuckles lightly and raises a curious eyebrow. “Dead?”

“Dead. His hyperactivity will be the death of us. Nice knowing ya.”

“Well, let’s hope not. Heh heh.” A similar crimson glows beneath Marco’s tan freckled face as he ushers Jean over with a jerk of the head; Jean obliges and proceeds down the hall alongside his boyfriend. With a gentle sigh, Marco hooks an arm around the other’s shoulders, pulling him closer as they make their way toward the kitchen. “Hey, wanna go to dinner tomorrow? Just the two of us?”

Jean peers up inquisitively at him, casting Marco a dubious eye and prodding him in the side with his knuckles. “Huh? Just us? What’s the occasion?”

“A-Aha, no occasion.” Vigorously shaking his head, Marco slips his free hand into his pocket in a peculiar bout of awkwardness. “I just… I know that you’ve been working hard this past month on that project for class. I just wanted to treat you, that’s all. We don’t get to do things on our own much, so I thought you might want to… Uh…” He swallows visibly, pulling Jean even closer and almost causing said man physical pain. “We could ask Armin to babysit for the night—we could have him come get Nico and then we can have the entire night to ourselves…”

“ _Ah._ ” A pause. “So you’re just that desperate to get it on?”

The scarlet that dapples Marco’s cheeks increases tenfold. “What— _no!_ I just want to spend some time with you!”

Well, Jean sees no harm in this, he supposes. Sure, that might entail driving, but as long as Jean chooses a restaurant within a reasonable distance from the house, they could always walk, “because walks are much more romantic”. It’s the perfect excuse, really, and Marco will never have to know about the missing engine. Or the missing radio. He’ll never drive that small-ass Cooper again, as long as Jean has anything to say about it.

He’s screwed, but at the very least, having time to themselves tomorrow should provide him with the best opportunity to pop the question, right?

Alright, fantastic—Operation Surprise-the-Hell-Out-of-Marco-Bodt is a-go.

And as the two make their way into the kitchen, Jean’s mind is so preoccupied with his plot that he misses the anxious, loving way that Marco stares across at him—and, consequently, the way that Marco’s fingers linger reassuringly over a little box-like shape that juts out into the fabric of his own trouser pocket.

~w~w~w~

“Hah! I _called_ it!”

“’Called it’?” Marco blinks once, twice, as a look of bafflement passes over his features; he peers interestedly across the room at Connie’s victorious face. “Called what?”

“Called _that!_ ” he shouts, directing a pointed finger at Marco’s left hand; the ring finger of said hand is encircled by a platinum band which glints attractively in the fluorescent lighting of the Muro Maria kitchen. The restaurant closed about an hour ago, but by Marco’s request, those working the evening shift stayed behind to hear the announcement (not that it much matters, for Jean is at home with Nico and the premise of this meeting was pretty darn obvious anyway).

Leaning back against a stove, Marco lifts his hand toward his face again, observing the ring with pursed lips and a worried brow; it isn’t as if the ring doesn’t look expensive, for it _is_ far better than any bands that were within his price range, but that doesn’t change the fact that Jean _sold the engine of his car_ to buy it. “Oh… Right. Heh, I had almost forgotten…” He clears his throat, making a face at the ring on his finger once more before returning his attention to the group around him. “This is the one Jean gave me.”

“Wait.” A look of incredulity passes over Eren’s face as he removes his apron and hangs it up beside the door. “ _Jean_ proposed to _you?_ ”

“Not exactly… It’s a long story…” And, as such, a lengthy story for another day, for Marco is still struggling to fully grasp the truth of it all himself, and it was over two days ago.

Eren merely grunts at the idea. “Huh. I didn’t think he had the guts.” His eyes drift over to the ring once more, widening at the sight that greets him upon further inspection. “Wow. That looks expensive. _Really_ expensive.”

“I don’t even _want_ to know how much it cost him…” Marco mumbles with a sigh, covering his mouth with his hand for a moment as a little wince passes over his face. His gaze grows dull and his body hunches up a little, though he cannot will down the twitchy half-grin that threatens to break out on his lips—Jean is absolutely ridiculous, and while this is something that he forgets at times, he has to appreciate the willpower that his boyfriend—fiancé—puts into every aspect of his life. It’s enough to make him smile, and _more_ than enough to make him cringe in times like these, where Jean goes so over the top that he almost can’t stand it. Almost. Luckily for Jean, Marco is a rather tolerant, patient person—maybe that’s why they work so well together. Because Marco is the only guy who can handle all of Jean’s utter _bullshit_. And heaven knows that Jean is _full_ of bullshit. He’s practically brimming with absurdity every time they so much as bump into each other, let alone when they’re bickering, or when they’re having sex, or when they’re cooking together (or, rather, when Jean is cooking and Marco is struggling to boil water on a stove—that’s probably the biggest perk of having Jean live with the Bodts, actually. Nowadays, Nico will sit down for dinner without so much as a whine).

Nevertheless, it stands that Jean cannot do anything with an _inkling_ of sense or sanity.

“Wonder if he stole it…” Eren muses, stepping forward for a closer look; inquisitively, he pokes it with his fingernail a few times. “Feels real.”

Marco sighs dejectedly. “It better be… He took the engine and the radio from the Cooper and sold it to Reiner.”

If at all possible, Connie’s face grows all the more expressive; he sets his cell phone aside for a moment to snort out a loud chortle. “Oh yeah, he told me about that! First he wanted me to take it. I was like, _‘not on your life’_! What did he expect me to do with an engine and a radio?”

“What does he expect _me_ to do with a few-thousand dollar ring?!” Absently running a hand through his hair, Marco tugs at the short stands in the back as he attempts to convey his dilemma to the three standing around him (Levi is in the back of the room, silently re-cleaning everything that Eren and Connie failed to fully sanitize). “He didn’t even buy one for himself—he sold the engine and the radio, _and_ went into his savings, just to buy this for _me_. It drives me nuts sometimes—how he doesn’t stop and think things through all the way. It can’t be helped, but… I don’t have a working car now, either…”

“Well, that’s your answer, isn’t it?” Eren asks, grinning across at Marco as he picks up a mop from the corner of the room and proceeds to swab the tile beneath their feet. “You could just sell the car. You’d have enough money to buy Jean the same ring that way. And it’s not a very old car, so you could probably get a decent amount back for it.”

“Even without an engine?”

“Just talk to Reiner about it.” Shrugging his shoulders, Eren leans his elbow down upon the end of the broom, propping himself upright. “He’s knows a lot about this kind of stuff—that’s probably why Horseface went to him in the first place.”

“What about the ring you got for him?” Connie inquires, lounging backwards on the countertop and glancing upside-down at his bamboozled companion.

“Oh, that’s what Jean’s been wearing the past few days.” A fresh, sincere smile births itself on Marco’s face at the prospect, and a new light glints in his eye as he glances back down upon his own ring. “But that only cost me a hundred. Not a few thousand. It’s not as nice, of course, but he still refuses to take it off.” Ah, yes, that had been a Walmart purchase put to good use—especially considering he’s been waiting to pop the question since August.

At this, Connie can only roll his eyes, though it’s all in lighthearted fun. “Then there you go. Just sell back the ring Jean gave you and you’re all set.”

“That’s an _awfully_ long process, though.” It isn’t as if Marco is lazy—and to think as such isn’t too nice, either, so please refrain from pointing fingers before he gets the chance to explain himself. He can’t deal with any more stress as it is. An anxious smile, crooked and uncertain, spreads across his lips. “I’d have to return the ring, then pay Reiner back, then get the parts back and get them in back under the hood, somehow… I don’t even know how Jean managed to get the engine out in the first place… I think he had Reiner help him with that, too… Either way, this whole situation is just kind of a mess, huh?” He chances a nervous laugh. “We’ll figure it out soon enough, but it’s made things a little tenser with Jean than I’d prefer.”

“He’ll get over it.” Eren shrugs his shoulders again, dunking the mop into the bucket of water again as he speaks. “He always does. He’s just being kind of an asshat right now—it happens.”

Connie cannot help himself—he nods his head in agreement and leans back further against the counter. “That’s an understatement. I swear he has, like, PMS or something. Only it’s a daily thing.”

Marco chooses to ignore everything wrong with what Connie has just said and instead focuses in on the vibration emanating from the cell growing hot in his pocket. Withdrawing the flip-phone with careful fingers, he opens it and glances down at the screen with a strong sense of curiosity, noting the late time on the clock and the fact that very few people should, theoretically, be texting him in this moment of inner struggle and rambling amongst friends. He pulls open the messaging app and frowns slightly—this will cost him another fifty cents, so it had better be important, whatever it is. Err, not that he has a major hatred of losing minimal amounts of money—it’s just that… Oh, alright, he’ll admit that he’s a bit _frugal_ , perhaps even _old-fashioned_ , to an extent, but that does not mean that he needs to upgrade his phone. Or his data plan. Or the wallpaper in his house. Or the house in a general sense.

Is all of this the result of living with Jean for too long?

Oh dear.

Well, looks like living together for an eternity is going to be interesting.

It’ll be fun, sure.

But he cannot help but fear that some of Jean’s oddities will rub off on him. He has no problem with Jean, generally speaking—of course he doesn’t, he adores the man with all his heart—but there are some things that should stay strictly _Jean_ , not Jean-and-Marco, and these little inner arguments could really stand to _shut the heck up_.

“Anyway, Connie—” Eren’s voice sounds out nearby, obviously directed at Connie rather than Marco, though the freckled man listens in absently nonetheless, “—since they got engaged before a year was up, you owe me a hundred.”

“What? No way!” At this proposal, Connie shoots upward from his spot on the counter, approaching Eren with a defiant gleam in his eyes. “That’s not fair!”

“How is it not fair? You’re the one who wanted to make a bet in the first place.”

“That was almost a year ago!”

“So?”

“It doesn’t count if you interfere!” Connie shakes his head defiantly. “Jean and Marco wouldn’t have shared dinner at all that night if you hadn’t _tripped_ him!”

A look of feigned innocence passes over Eren’s face. “It’s not like I meant to trip him...”

“My _ass!”_

“ _What_ ass?”

 “You were sitting under their table! You _so_ meant to trip him!”

Although Eren’s lips part to retort again, he is promptly cut off by the sudden appearance of Levi, who has since migrated from the back of the room to stand between the bickering boys. “Get back to work already, or I’m cutting your pay.”

All of this nonsense goes more or less unnoticed by Marco, however, as he flips through the most recent messages that he has received—all of which from the past five minutes or so, each containing little images with blunt captions strewn out beneath each in Verdana font. Call him feminine, call him naïve, but Marco cannot help the genuine, giddy grin that grows on his face at the sight—another two pictures are sent through, totaling five pictures and a text-only message—before the barrage of texts ends at last.

Chancing a quick glance up at his preoccupied companions, Marco leans himself further back against the stove, scrolling up to the first image and working his way down.

“Movie night with Nico; given the choice of _The Powerpuff Girls_ and _Scooby-Doo,_ he says he wishes he had gone with you.”

The image that follows is enough to earn a light laugh from Marco—a selfie of Jean holding up both DVD cases with an overly serious, deadpan expression on his face.

“We’re watching Powerpuff Girls. Hell to the yes.”

The DVD case is shown again, though this time on its own in the shot; a glare is cast onto the plastic by the window off-screen, though he can still make out Bubbles in the corner (as well as a little pink shoe poking out from the edge of the sheen). Poor Nico, Marco thinks with a small smile; his son is going to be corrupt by all of Jean’s closet geekiness, one of these days (not to mention the fact that movies don’t generally entertain Nico all that much to begin with).

“Got the munchies. No Warheads this time, don’t worry.”

In the following photo, Jean has taken a box of Cookie Dough Bites and placed it on the windowsill; the image was shot from below, however, casting a haze around the box in the glint of the setting sun in a way that makes it look comically majestic (Marco had gone straight from work to the restaurant, and as such hasn’t been home since three o’clock or so—thus, judging by the amount of sunlight, these photos were probably taken hours ago and have only just now been received through his [sluggish, ancient] phone).

“Before…” A photo of Nico leaning back against the couch with his hand stuffed inside a box of Junior Mints. “… After.” It’s grown darker, and though the image is a bit hazy, it’s obviously a selfie of Nico and Jean, the former fast asleep against the arm of the sofa and the latter making a face of mock disappointment.

The final message, in its simplistic, text-only format, is the last to appear as he scrolls down the list; the time stated beside it differs, reading 10:22, implying that it was sent only recently. Lifting an eyebrow curiously, he opens the full message and reads it with a careful eye.

“Hey, Marco. Things are fine here, no worries. Nico’s in bed now, so… Yeah. Just figured I’d let you know that everything’s fine—except we have no beer. That’s not fine. Anyway... Get back home soon, will you? You still haven’t watched this show either, and like hell is our relationship gonna last if you don’t go through this rite of passage.

Damn, I think I heard the neighbor’s cat in our garbage again. Talk to you later. Love you, Marco.”

Yes, he thinks with a happy sigh—he could get used to a life like this. It’s far from a normal life—nothing like the carbon-copy cookie-cutter lifestyle of so many couples before them—but that makes it all the more precious. It’s far from something that can be replicated, so he must make an effort to keep it as functional and tight-knit as possible. They have their oddities and their little quirks, but despite all of this, Marco knows that they’ll make it through this bizarre life together.

It’s far from perfect.

And it’s well beyond anything he ever could have hoped for.

~ Fin ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end~
> 
> Thank you all SO MUCH for sticking by me throughout the duration of this fic! You haven't the slightest idea how happy it makes me to know that a number of you out there thoroughly enjoyed this cavity-inducing fluff-fest. I hope that I can serve you all further and dish out some more fanfiction that centers around these two. I intend to write a few more humor-based oneshots for Jean and Marco sometime, and a few of which might branch off from this fanfiction, so be sure to keep up with me, either via AO3 or tumblr (ascensionablaze.tumblr.com) if you want to read anything else that I may write in the future. :)
> 
> Thanks again~
> 
> ~ Lorelai ❤
> 
> EDIT: There is now a sequel!  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/1075569


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